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AS IT HAPPENED 





^ i 




f s 



AS IT HAPPENED 


By 

ASHTON HILLIERS 

it 

Author of “ Memoir of a Person of Quality ” 
“ Mistakes of Miss Manisty,” “Old Score,” etc. 


M 


NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 

27 and 29 West 23D St. 

I 9°9 



E y trassfer 
®bf> White House. 

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 


FOREWORD 


My dear J W , 

When I set about this ticklish business of writing a 
Second Book (one’s First is, as it were, secreted unconsciously), 
you, in the kindly-shrewd manner native to you, bade me 
beware of Three Things. 

“ In your story,” said you, ‘\let therebe none of This ” ; and 
you shall find, as I think, none of This in it, or not much. 

“ Avoid That,” you enjoined with minatory forefinger; 
and That, too, have I avoided, so far as was possible. 

“Keep clear o’ The Other,” you urged, “for too liberal 
seasoning spoils the dish, dims the memory of what went before, 
and weakens the gust for what follows ” ; and of The Other have 
I kept clear — nearly — but not quite. 

What This and That may be you and I know, and is the 
business of nobody else ; for what’s missed is mystery. But 
as for The Other, I’ll own ’twas against Impossibilities you 
warned me — from the introduction of feats, whether moral 
or physical, beyond the scope of mortal man. 

And this, alack ! have I done — twice. 

Confiteor ! 

That a sane man should behave as I have represented a 
sane man behaving in Bk. V. chap. vi. is one instance. That 
a human being should be found alive under the circumstances 
related in Bk. VI. chap. xi. is another. Both* are Impossi- 
bilities. 

Yet (hear my excuse, such as it is), both are historical 
facts as well accredited as any that I know of. 

For the former I refer you to a curious old Tract entitled 
The Fighting Sailor Turn'd Peaceable Christian : manifested 
in the Convincement and Conversion of Thomas Lurting. With 
a short Relation of many great Dangers and wonderful De- 
liverances he met withal. First Written for Private Satis- 
faction, and Now Published for General Service. 

London : Printed and Sold by J. Sowle, in White Hart 
Court, in Gracious Street, October 1710. 

This is that Lurting who was the friend of a certain George 

v 


vi 


FOREWORD 



standing the Impossibility of what he relates. Him, or some 
part of him, have I annexed and reset amid eighteenth- 
century surroundings, for which liberty may the heroic 
soul pardon me. 

This is my Moral Impossibility. 

For the physical, and yet greater (if there be degrees in 
impossibility), I will send you to Captain Sayer’s History of 
Gibraltar, Saunders, Otley & Co., London, 1862. 

For liberties taken with history I have little to repent j 
me of. As you know, the Madras Cabal was a black business. 
As you also know, the assault upon the North Front in my 
last chapter has no warrant from the page of stout old Drink- i 
water. The omission, albeit no fault of his, will always seem j 
to me a blemish upon a remarkable work. There should 
certainly have been an attempt at escalade, but there wasn’t. 

If I have rectified the deficiency, and done more than justice 
to the military genius of Mendoza, who is hurt ? 

I remain, my dear J W , 

With renewed thanks for your counsel and encouragement. 

Yours faithfully, 

Ashton Hilliers. 

July 1908. 






CONTENTS 


BOOK I 

IN OLD MADRAS 


CHAP. 

I. 

A CRISIS 

• • 


• 

• 


PAGE 

. I 

II. 

OLD 

FRIENDS 

• 

. 

• 

• 

. 

12 

III. 

OLD 

ENEMIES 

• • 

• 

• 

• 

• 

22 



- 

BOOK 

II 






THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


I. 

MORALISINGS UPON A HAIR TRUNK 

AND 

OTHER 



THINGS 

• 

• 

40 

II. 

THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 

• 


46 

III. 

MY LANDLADY’S CHAMBER 

• 


62 

IV. 

SANDYLANE HILL .... 

• 

• • 

69 

V. 

MORE OF SANDYLANE HILL . 

• 

• • 

74 

VI. 

MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE AND GOOD 

RESOLUTIONS 

84 


BOOK III 

THE CHANCES OF TOWN 

I. THE HOME-COMING OF SUSAN .... 102 

II. SUSAN THE BRIDE . . . .' . . Il 6 

III. MONDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE . . • 119 

vii b 


viii 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAP. 

IV. TUESDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE. MAJOR TIGHE 

FISHES WITH LIVE BAIT 133 

V. WEDNESDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE . . 149 

VI. FRIDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE. BOYLE GETS HIS 

CHANCE l 6 l 

VII. SATURDAY IN THE PARK ; SUE’S ANGEL INTER- 
VENES 167 


BOOK IV 

HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 

I. A HAVEN OF REFUGE 

II. NO. 6 , CATHERINE COURT .... 

III. THE INEVITABLE 

IV. THE SEVERING STRAND 


175 

185 

197 

207 


BOOK V 

THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


I. TERTIUM QUID 

II. AT SEA . 

HI. JUSTIN PROVIDES HIMSELF WITH AN ENEMY AND 

A FRIEND 

IV. A QUAKERS’ MEETING INTERRUPTED 

V. HOSTES GENTIUM 

VI. THE FALLING AWAY OF THOMAS FURLEY 



222 


230 

234 

245 

256 


BOOK VI 
CRISIS 

I. GIBRALTAR 

II. THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS . 

III. THE FINDING OF SUSAN 


. 265 

• 273 

. 290 


CONTENTS 

CHAP. 

IV. THE END OF THE QUEST. THE MAJOR AS GUARDIAN, 
AND THE ENTANGLING OF FRESH THREADS 

V. WHAT WAS HAPPENING MEANWHILE 

VI. MORE MEANWHILE HAPPENINGS 

VII. “ THE LAST INFIRMITY OF NOBLE MINDS ” . 

VIII. DANGER 

IX. MISSING 

X. SUSPENSE 

XI. BENEATH THE CLIFFS 

S 

XII. THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD .... 

BOOK VII 

FINIS CO RON AT OPUS 

I. JUSTIN IS MADE HAPPY 

II. A FORLORN HOPE 

III. CAPTAIN FURLEY MAKES PORT . 

IV. THE LAST 




ix 

PAGE 

294 

309 

316 

326 

333 

344 

352 

360 

366 


372 

37 8 

385 

393 

















AS IT HAPPENED 


BOOK I 

IN OLD MADRAS 


CHAPTER I 


A CRISIS 


T HE guns were going in Old Madras that day in June 
in the year of our Lord 1778. Fort St. George was 
firing salvo after salvo in token of victory. Bastions, still 
pitted with the shot-marks of Lally’s cannonade of twenty 
years before, were quivering with the shocks of a feu de foie 
that informed whomsoever it might concern — Blacktown to 
the north there, and Pudupuk, Mylapore Sao Thome, and the 
ring of suburbs west and south — that the power of France in 
the Indies was broken at last, and that the chief of King 
Louis’s forts and factories had struck their flags without 
firing a shot. 

Good news, great news this, which the subalterns of 
the garrison were wetting British fashion. Older heads, 
remembering the up-and-down fighting of five-and-twenty 
years, wagged powdered wigs over it, opining that the luck 
was too good to last. Pondicheri held out, and what about 
Mahe ? Would Hyder Ali stand aside and let us take it ? 
God send King George and John Company no worse luck ! 
But was it likely ? The fellow had probably refitted by 
this after the knockings about and carryings away of his 
last campaign ; he would be spoiling for another fight, and a 
smack at us would be entirely in his line (dev’lish hard 


1 


2 


IN OLD MADRAS 


hitter, Hyder Ali) ; and this new falling out between French 
and British was a chance he would be a fool to let slip. 

Boom l Boom!! Every political weathercock, shifting of 
late, now pointed to war, bloody war by land and sea, to 
forts to be stormed, to factories to be looted, districts to be 
annexed or held to ransom, prize-money to be divided, to 
promotion for the youngsters — already moistening feverish 
lips at the prospect ; but, for the oldsters, shaken by 
climate and hard living, wrinkled, yellow men in their early 
middle age, who knew in themselves that one more campaign 
would be as much as they could stand, those guns sounded 
ominously. 

Boom ! Boom J ! The recurrent shocks went pulsing away 
inland, stimulating memory as they went. It was but a few 
years since this same Fort St. George had surrendered to 
these French ; still more recently the Mahrattas had attacked 
it, had fallen back from its embattled strength indeed, but 
had held its suburbs for weeks. Now, it goes without saying 
that a horde of sowars is bad for the trading community 
upon which it chooses to quarter itself, hence, at the sound 
of the guns, the sowkar bethought him of his secret strong- i 
room beneath the mud of the tank, and certain British , 
residents, planters, and retired Company’s servants, who had ij 
speculated in land and built themselves bungalows in these I 
suburbs, were weighing their chances. 

Boom ! Old Chisholm was standing at the couch-side of 
his dying wife. “ She disna ken me,” he mused. “It is a 
week syne she has spoken ma name,” he frowned helplessly, 
pawing a great beard, revolving many things, and presently 
resigned the wasted, unresponsive body to its women watchers, 
and left the twilit room again for the shade of the tree whence 
he could see the top-sails of the Indiaman which was to sail 
for Home next day. 

Ian Chisholm had not seen Scotland for many a year ; he i 
was a rich man : the dying woman within there was his only 
tie to the east. Were she dead — and her death, as he sorrow- 
fully recognised, was but a matter of hours now — he would 
consider matters. 

Boom ! In another bungalow, white-walled and shaded by 
its mango tope, a lean, sick man turned wearily upon his 
charpoy and lent a listening ear. The punkah drove warm 
gusts about the room and shook the hanging chicks, but he 
felt himself sufficiently alone to steal a swift, covert glance 
from beneath the black penthouse of bristling brows at a 
brace of horse-pistols upon the wall. Boom ! One peep was 
enough : they hung there ready for use, it seemed. He nodded 
and dozed again. 


A CRISIS 


3 

Boom ! Boom ! / To his Excellency the Governor those 
guns knocked like the knuckles of some expected but un- 
known visitor. An anxious man was Mr. Thomas Rumbold. 
He will be a baronet before he dies, and, what concerns us 
more to-day, shall beget a line of fighting men and diplo- 
matists for the service of the Empire, of whom one is still 
with us. In his time he had used both sword and pen ; an 
empty sleeve attested service under Clive ; he had sate 
in Parliament for Shoreham, and would presently find it 
needful to sit again, for the man was shrewd and bought 
influence. His predecessor, less politic, purchased gaudy 
wares, an Irish peerage, which is naught. 

It was around the name and the fate of this predecessor 
that the anxieties of Mr. Rumbold thickened. The morning 
after a battle, and the year after a revolution, are unpleasant 
times : there is the cleaning-up to be done. This was the 
year following the Madras Cabal. A regularly appointed 
Lieutenant-Governor, one Lord Pigot, best remembered to- 
day as the sometime owner of the great Pigot Diamond, had 
been deposed by a mutinous council, arrested by a suborned 
aide and bribed troops, immured in his own garden-house, and 
never seen alive again. The man had cried in vain for help 
to the fleet upon the station, had appealed to the authorities 
at Home ; but England was far and the Governors slow. He 
was in his enemies’ hands the while : they were playing for 
a tremendous stake, and took no chances. When the des- 
patches at last arrived — formal rebuke for the mutineers and 
reinstatement for their prisoner — the man was dead. ‘ ‘ Climate 
and constitution,” said his jailers; but found none to believe 
them at the time, nor since. 

And the actual cause of this quarrel ? Come, I will give 
it in brief. Conceive a Council of State cleft by opposing 
greeds as by a knife, its two halves not upon speaking terms, 
each striving for the casting vote of a Governor as greedy 
as themselves, and employing the minor servants of their 
company upon their private speculations. 

To a meeting of such a council comes me in upon a Monday 
morning a clerk, a junior clerk, an it please ye, a fellow of 
small account, of exiguous salary (nominal), whose very name 
has perished, albeit his day’s work remains upon the record. 
This understrapper lays upon the council-table a petition for 
redress in his own name, praying the Honourable Council to 
collect a certain debt for him, moneys which he, the said 
understrapper, has lent to a certain Rajah, to wit, about a 
quarter of a million sterling (have patience : sober fact, I 
assure you). Having made his bow, presented and ex- 
plained his petition, the fellow does what he should have done 


4 


IN OLD MADRAS 


before doing either, runs his eye around the table. Enemies 
to a man ! Not a friend was present ! His heart sank ; 
they were at him, he was bidden to explain, |.he stammered, 
flushed, and when heckled as to his details, presently ad- 
mitted that one item of seventy thousand pounds sterling 
should have stood at twelve thousand, and so on. He is 
chidden from the room, not too vigorously, for the men 
around that table were deep in the game, and were playing it 
just as unscrupulously, and had their own man of straw 
with a claim of like amount upon the same estate. The 
bungler rushes to his friends, “ Oh, why were you not there ? ” 
“ Fool,” they reply, “ ’twas not the day. We gave you 
Tuesday ; you came on Monday. But, cheer up, things may 
be mended. Whilst the other side is laughing we will act. 
Come again to-morrow.” He came, they were there to meet 
him, the others absent, celebrating their success, and by the 
time absentees were hurried up, the previous day’s minutes 
had been rescinded, and the claim, seventy thousand and all, 
passed for collection in its original shape, with an explanatory 
censure upon the petitioner for “ incivility of demeanour ” at 
his first hearing to account for the change of front. 

It was plain that the estate could not pay two such 
fines ; who was to put in execution first ? Let the Governor 
decide. His Excellency did decide (for considerations re- 
ceived, as one fears), the beaten party threatened, the 
Governor attempted to arrest them, but was countermined ; 
they arrested him : he had died in their hands. 

Hence the usurper was an anxious man. Point after point 
he had scored, but the rubber was still in dispute. The rival 
party played doggedly on and held a card or two yet. The 
kidnapping and imprisonment had won the first game. The 
approval of Mr. Warren Hastings (for reasons still undis- 
closed) and the endorsement of the accomplished fact by a 
venal Court of Governors at Home had come within a pip of 
landing the second. The reversal of that endorsement by 
the Court of Proprietors had gone near to spoiling all, had 
not the opportune death of the prisoner in the garden-house 
deferred the issue. 

A dead man neither tells tales nor is capable of reinstate- 
ment : that second game might be reckoned drawn. Back 
went the case to the India House for review ; and whilst 
awaiting instructions, the acting" Governor, with an angry 
ghost looking over his shoulder, sorted a weak hand for the 
final tussle, and led trumps. He would force the game ; the 
French were always with us in the East ; he fell upon them 
(in time of peace, look you). 

The man had anticipated the declaration of hostilities, and 


A CRISIS 


5 


had struck without waiting for permission ; had succeeded 
indeed, but not to the full. Would the Honourable Court 
stand by him, or throw him over ? Would the King’s 
ministers back him up ? He rubbed a dubious nose, re- 
flecting that much depended upon how the thing was put 
before the big people at Home. He could indite despatches, 
none better ; but who could tell how they would read at the 
other end ? They could answer no questions ; they might 
need amplifying, explaining, setting in a proper light. So a 
man must sail for Home forthwith, a man of the best, one 
whom he could trust to expound his aims and smooth away 
difficulties. A confidential agent he must have, but not the 
sort he had sent the year before (he winced at remembering 
what that mission had cost him). The time had gone by for 
your backstairs crawler, skilled in the greasing of itching 
palms ; the business had got beyond the Court of Governors : 
it would be an affair of la haute politique, and the final word 
would be with the King’s minister, possibly with George 
himself. 

Whom should he send ? and once again, whom ? He had 
about him men of parts and men of courage, but not a man 
whom he could trust. One of the beaten faction was not to 
be thought of, whilst his personal following was compromised ; 
the taint of conspiracy, and of worse, clung to them one and 
all. Nor was he sure of them. General this, Colonel that, 
Member of Council the other : who would not sell him if he 
saw his market ? 

The Governor looked over the heads of the expectant crowd 
and beckoned to him a soldier on active service. The man 
had hardly rank enough ; still, a major might pass. What 
status had Philip Francis when a King’s minister pitchforked 
the fellow from his desk at the War Office into the Bengal 
Council ? 

Oh, but there was mortified surprise, and the silence of 
disappointed men with claims, who knew in their hearts that 
the choice could be justified. There were even some who 
could offer excuses. 

His Excellency had gone outside the ring lest he should be 
pestered to death by unsuitable applicants : the case w as 
far too grave for favouritism— a job at this juncture might 
ruin his noble self. He was in no humour to give a Govern- 
ment passage to some broken punter that he might escape 
his native creditors, or to help a rake to prolong a life already 
doomed by self-indulgence. 

The Indiaman lay all but ready ; her fruit and water aboard ; 
her powder sent below ; the sail-maker’s gang had finished 
its labours, and the man she was to carry, the man of His 


6 


IN OLD MADRAS 


Excellency’s choice, was to dine at Government House that 
evening, and should sail at daybreak if the wind held. 

Thus it befell that Major Wade Justin, his mails packed for 
the voyage, his final arrangements and farewells made, was 
riding out to Mylapore that afternoon upon an unexpected 
summons. He rode slowly, for the sun was strong, and he 
wished, if he might, to be seen at his best at His Excellency’s 
table later. A quiet afternoon in quarters would have been 
more to his mind ; but this was a man who, from the day 
upon which he had landed in India, had never spared himself, 
who had always gone for his duty as soon as he saw it plainly ; 
and as he had begun he would finish. 

Let us stand aside and watch him pass, the small black 
hoofs of his dapple-grey Arab lightly tapping the dusty 
track : the rider, a well-knit, light-boned man of forty, who 
might pass for five-and-twenty in the saddle, so close is his 
seat, so light his bridle-hand, so gently have the crows ’-feet 
pressed the angles of his alert and kindly eyes. The fellow 
bears himself like a griffin in his first season, showing a firm, 
bronzed cheek, a well-chiselled lip and shapely chin, both 
exquisitely scraped, for the man is a bit of a beau, neat and 
dainty as a youngster of half his years. So well does he carry 
his age, and so helpfully does the mode of his day and his 
service cover the touches of time, that it is only when one 
looks him full in the face that one is conscious of a presence 
which only years can confer, and which is rarely conferred 
to a man upon the sunny side of thirty-five. 

“ A d d poor bottle-man,” his mess had dubbed him 

whilst still a subaltern, and Justin had owned the impeach- 
ment with a disarming laugh : “You drink to the health of 
his Majesty, but I follow his example. Can ye point me to a 
better ? ” A placable, tactful fellow this, you perceive, who 
had been known to permit Philip sober to recall the cartel 
despatched by Philip in his cups. ’Twas a duelling age : the 
crack of the pistol rings out sharply and often in the annals 
of the time. Our countrymen in the East were at least as 
keen upon the point of honour as their brethren at Home : 
neither the forlorn fewness of their numbers nor the tre- 
mendous issues which hung upon irreplaceable lives deterred 
them. Warren Hastings goes out with Francis — think of it ! 
the veritable Junius of the Letters exchanges shots with the 
first and greatest of England’s proconsuls ; the bullet that 
might have changed the destiny of the East flies wide, it is 
the spiteful pamphleteer who takes a wound. Heavens ! how 
men quarrelled in that day, and the lengths they went ! 
The bitterness and the pertinacities of those old “ affairs of 
honour ” ! Every fort, factory, and mess had its fire-eater. 


A CRISIS 


7 

the younger the fiercer ; raw griffins, with their names to 
make, insisted upon going out, would take no denials, and 
fought across the handkerchief from preference. Justin had 
come through this furnace unscathed. As second, as referee, 
as president of courts of honour he had acted times without 
number ; but not the hottest head in the Presidency, unless 
bemused with rack punch, had ventured to make a principal 
of this dapper, courteous little man, whose sword-arm was as 
cool and as supple as a steel rod, and who could kill a kite 
upon the wing with the pistol. 

Nathless, ’tis probable the man’s abstemious habit had 
retarded his promotion. Moderation is seldom popular. In 
our own time the general who fights an entirely well-planned 
and successful campaign upon cold tea is detested and 
despised by the troops he leads to victory, and whose healths 
he sedulously preserved, whilst the rosy-gilled viveur, whose 
genial presence and bluff address are the mask of shaken 
nerve, may lose battle after battle and still be worshipped 
by his poor tipsified Tommies, kindred spirits, with a wink for 
frailties which they passionately deny. Justin was widely 
respected, but not loved as men love the victim of some 
endearing vice ; nobody jobbed for him as men will job for 
a brother toper ; but, otherwise, he had nothing to regret : at 
forty he had seen his mess out and was the 'doyen of the 
garrison, well thought of by the leading natives, and held to 
possess the best heart, the clearest head, and the cleanest 
sheet in Fort George. 

Hence, since everything comes to him who can wait, when 
his Excellency wanted an agent-extraordinary he picked 
this prim, -silent fellow, grumbling as he made his selection, 
that if it came to heavy fighting, the Thirty-ninth would 
miss the best wing-leader in India. 

To return to our man on the gray Arab. 

Where compound walls constricted a suburb lane, the rider 
must needs draw rein : a palki issuing from a garden entrance 
blocked the way. Some one within was swearing gruffly at a 
servant who hastily effaced chalk-marks from the door. The 
execrations passed into a joyful shout, “ Ho, Justin, my good 
fellow ! This is luck ! Set me down, boys. Bearer, help 
me out of this. Wait. I’m with ye in a moment, old friend ! 
Ha ! Ha ! My crutch, boy ! ” A hot-faced man of full 
habit, puffing and chuckling as he moved, approached the 
rider, whom courtesy compelled to dismount. 

“ So here I have ye ! Ha ha ! — the man of all I was 
dyin’ to see ! Come, my dear major — ye know my gardens. 
What ? An engagement ? Absurd ! Oh, but ye must and 
shall;. ” 


8 


IN OLD MADRAS 


“ Nay, Sir Robin, I thank ye heartily ; my time is not 
my own, and, with your leave, I must not and shall not ! ’* 
replied Justin, with a certain smiling crispness, and it was 
the florid general who yielded, as men always did yield to 
the impenetrable courtesy of Justin. 

“ What, not a bottle ? and ye sail to-night. A parting glass, 
then ! ” urged the other. 

“ Not a thimbleful, as you love me. Come, I appeal to 
your judgement : I have far to ride in this sun, and am to dine 
with the Governor.” 

“ Hang the Governor ! ” growled the Governor’s Comman- 
der-in-Chief, for it was he, no less ; and instantly forcing the 
jolly laugh for which he was famous, hobbled nearer to his 
companion and caught his sleeve ; “ Then, as ye will not sit 
with me, ye piece of cruelty, I must make my adieux standing, 
though I swear my toe is on fire already. Look here, my boy, 
I congratulate ye. ’Tis Home ye are going, and with des- 
patches. The billet was mine by rights, ha 1 ha ! But let 
that pass.” 

“ They couldn’t spare Sir Robin ” 

“ And that’s truer than ye know,” with a meaning nod and 
a grimace. “ Justin, — my boy, I may call ye ? — I’ve always 
stood your friend. Ye’ll admit as much : ’twas your cursed 
punctiliousness, not my ill-will, that has kept ye a poor man. 
Ye’ve had your chances.” 

“ Have I complained ? ” 

“ Never ! But, as I was saying, I have always given ye 
my good word, and now I am by way of wanting a bit of my 
own back, for I have need of yours. Yes ! ” The speaker’s 
jovial face was drawn and earnest now, and his voice husky 
and caressing, his bloodshot eye sought to catch and hold 
his man’s. Justin, detained by the sleeve, stiffened instinc- 
tively, apprehending disagreeables. 

“Ye will back me before the Governors, Justin ? Ye will ? 
We have pulled through a ticklish time together. Poor Pigot 
was an arrogant fool, and greedy ; and that’s God’s truth, 
though the man’s dead. He had made three fortunes. Why 
couldn’t he go Home and give the rest a chance ? ’Twas 
bound to come in some form or other, for we are none of us 
here for our healths. We all want a dip in the lucky-bag (all 
but yourself, ha ! ha !). But, as for what happened, ye know, 
Justin, as well as any man, that I had no hand in it. I need 
not particularise ; but there are things which an officer and a 

gentleman That arrest, now, ’twas mutiny, no less ; and 

the manner of it was infernally inhospitable. To drink a 
man’s wine, share his carriage and all, with the warrant in 
one’s pocket ! No, no ; a Fletcher couldn’t do it, but a Stuart, 


A CRISIS 


9 


faugh ! These adventurers are not squeamish. No ; I assure 
you, I ” 

“ Just so. You were not involved. As I was given to 
understand, your gout ” 

!< Was ‘ unpardonably opportune.’ Rumbold’s word, con- 
found him ! Not to my face, but I know what they say in 
the closet. O, I have still my friends ! ha ! ha ! But none 
like you, my boy, none ! And ’tis your good offices with the 
Court I am building upon.” 

But Justin gave no sign. He was courteously anxious to 
escape, but had seen no opening yet. Fletcher ran on, edging 
nearer : there was more to come. His eye twinkled as if he 
had perpetrated a joke ; he emitted small humorous sounds 
and indulged in grotesque facial contortions whilst loosing at 
intervals a rich, throaty laugh as if to point a good story ; 
standing back from his man to watch the jape home, still 
holding to his sleeve. ’Twas Sir Robert’s way (” Robin ” he 
was for being called) — it was his manner, his temperament, 
as courteous reserve was Justin’s ; but the world must be 
amused, and is apt to undervalue staid, good service whilst 
profuse to its favourite buffoon. 

“ These fellows have had the devil’s own luck, so far ; 
but, mark me, the thing will miscarry, yet. That garden- 
house business — we know what will out ; eh, my boy ? ” The 
husky voice fell low and tremulous. 

“ Sir Robin, I know nothing, and have shut my ears to 
bazaar gup. You had sent me upon special service up-country 
before the trouble began, and I have been engaged with the 
French in one form or another ever since ” 

“ You ? Who is talking of you ? ” blurted the other with 
momentary loss of patience. “ It is I who am in the cleft stick, 
and need you, O, more than I can tell ! Yet ye have put off 
coming to me until the last moment, and want to give me the 
go-by : I swear ye do ! Have I not writ to ye twice ? Never 
say ye did not get — Whew ! Then, begad, ’tis as I feared ; 
our people have been got at : there’s a hedge about us. I 
was upon my way to ye when ye came up. I swear 
’tis a providence. Ha ! ha ! ” he laughed. “ For, lookye, 
Justin, ’twas necessary for me to have speech with ye at 
all hazards, and here we are, though I fancy at some risk 
to us both.” He glanced sharply down the lane and chuckled 
grimly. 

“ So bad as that, Sir Robin ? ” 

“ My boy, ye know nothing : that’s your safety. But I know 
all, to my danger. Both sides approached me : I — well — I 
played with ’em. What was a man to do ? And it seems 
I’ve fallen between two stools. You were away, but a man 


IO 


IN OLD MADRAS 


upon the spot, as I was, and with my tom-toe in a vice, and 
in such agony that I signed anything that that villain Stuart 

put before me They acted without my knowledge ; I was 

as innocent as a babe ; I swear it ; but, nominally, ye know, 
I was in command. They claim to hold my signature for 
everything the military did ; yes, even for what ye know ” — a 
meaning nod, the jolly cheeks shook, the eyes were urgent — 
££ Yes, Stuart lays it to me — think, to me ! He has put it about 
that my gout was a blind. £ Who stuck the Pigot ? ’ is the 
cant word of my British regiments : the little rascal drums 
shout it after my palki. I dread going abroad. They chalk 
it on my compound gates. Look ! £ Tis damnable ! Con- 
ceive, being charged with a crime ye never so much as 
contemplated, and hate the thought of ! And meanwhile, 
this twelvemonth they have kept me upon the sick-list. Stuart 
acts : I have not power to post a sentry.” 

££ General, I commiserate you — but * 

££ Well ye may, my boy, for I doubt I am the next to go. 
Say the cry grows hot, and the Court of Proprietors wants a 
victim, here I lie, handy and helpless, a temple sacrifice, a 
goat to be pushed to the mugger ! Whilst if I protest publicly, 
appeal to the Court, say — as he did — egad, there’s other 
garden-houses, and ’twill soon be f Who killed Cock Robin ? * 
Ha ! ha ! ” 

The speaker was in pain, was in danger, was suffering the 
extreme of anxiety, yet he laughed. There are men who would 
laugh upon the ladder with the noose around the neck. Robert 
Fletcher was of the breed. 

Justin, though outwardly calm, was painfully embarrassed. 
This was not one of the valedictory visits which he had con- 
templated. Fletcher’s familiarities, his appeals to a friendship 
which had never subsisted, and to good offices which had not 
been rendered, left his former subordinate watchful and cold. 
Yet the distress of the one and the fine nature of the other 
were tending to an understanding when the haste of the 
suppliant spoilt all. It came at last suddenly, for the man was 
desperate and could trust no go-between. 

££ Well, I shall be thinking of ye, shall be infinitely obliged 
to ye, too. I dare not detain ye longer, my boy. There’s my 
case. I place my good name in your hands. You will be 
pleased to use it at your discretion ” 

££ Sir Robin, I ? No, sir ! ” returned Justin with surprise 
and stiffly, putting his hands behind him. 

“ In my service, of course, but at your unfettered ” 

££ Again no, sir,” more stiffly. ££ I decline to act for ye ; I will 
accept no commission : I can entertain nothing of the kind.’ 4 

££ But, my dear Major ” 


A CRISIS 


ii 


“ Sir Robin, I must be gone ; I am waited for. I have the 
honour to wish — I beg you to release my sleeve. Sir, respect 
yourself. Our people are watching us.” The men drew 
apart ; a packet small and hard fell and lay in the highway 
dust. Justin remounted with dignified speed ; the other, with 
working lips and hot eyes, watched him go. 


CHAPTER II 


OLD FRIENDS 

Justin meanwhile rode on with so grave a face that Ibn Ali, 
horse-boy and humble friend, trotting at his master’s stirrup, 
knew that something must be amiss. Something there was 
lying upon the Major’s mind, touching him more nearly than 
the importunity of General Fletcher. England in the East, 
haughtily clean to-day, was then so insolently corrupt that 
nothing in our recent public life, nothing that has occurred 
within living memory in our colonies or dependencies will 
afford an adequate instance. Having no word of our own to 
connote an idea with which the average Englishman is happily 
unfamiliar, one must borrow from the too copious vocabulary 
of our American cousins to describe conditions not dissimilar 
from theirs. To the boss of an Indian district in Justin's 
time boodle was the breath of his nostrils, whilst graft was 
the dream of his white understudy. What else were they 
there for ? The salaries of both were microscopic : they were 
permitted to “ trade ” upon their private accounts, which 
included hypothecations and the purchase of reversions, the 
buying-up and prosecution of fictitious claims before friendly 
judges, and the advancing of money at usurious rates of 
interest. 

Hence Justin, who knew, by report at least, of this latest 
iniquity and other deals as bad, and had marked from outside 
the extremities and desperate resources of the gamesters, was 
past being shocked. Where all were rogues, and where every 
man was for himself and in haste to be rich, jockeying and foul 
riding were normal ; and our friend could well believe that a 
clique at its wits’ end had stooped to the blackest of deeds, 
and might again. He glanced at the case and passed it without 
comment, as in the course of his military life he had been com- 
pelled to see and to pass without comment many shocking 
and piteous sights. What would you ? That the man should 
have broken his sword and gone Home ? Nay ; there was his 
service to be considered, and England to boot. His own hands 


12 


OLD FRIENDS 


13 

were clean ; and hence it had come about that he was going 
Home with an unbroken sword. 

For his unlucky commander he had a movement of sym- 
pathy. Sir Robin was a man whose gallant bearing and 
constitutional high spirits had through life imposed upon 

1 himself and others, had secured him step after step, and had 
at length advanced him to a position where jokes under fire 
and headlong courage under orders were insufficient. The 
indecision and moral infirmity which lay at the root of his 
character had worked to the surface when placed in command 
and proved his undoing. 

No ; it was not the difficulties of the man whom he had just 
left that narrowed the rider’s eye and pursed his lip, but the 
thought of the one to whom he was going. This belated 
request for an interview had come from an old comrade with 
whom Justin had not exchanged a word for years, between 
whom and himself subsisted the misunderstanding of half 
a lifetime, a misunderstanding patent to their fellows, but 

( based upon a secret understanding to which neither had ever 
referred, or had hardly so much as admitted to himself. 

In years past Justin had awaited this summons; he had for 
long ceased to expect it : now, at the twelfth hour it had come 
to him ; for apart from his near departure, his enemy, who 
lived in seclusion, was spoken of as a dying man. There 
remained but to accede to the request. 

A regimental quarrel, you are saying ? Yes, a regimental 
quarrel ; and how gangrenous a dispute may become between 
men of the same mess is revealed at times when the amazing 
findings of a court-martial are discussed in the press and the 
soiled linen of some historic regiment is washed in public. 
If these things occur at Aldershot, and the Curragh, in our 
placable century, what befell, think you, a hundred and fifty 
years since upon tropical stations, where the liver was normally 
congested, and pickles and tempers were hot, and a public 
opinion could hardly be said to have existed ? 

Yet Justin does not strike one as quite the man for a ven- 
detta. See him caressing the translucent ear of his mare, 
taking silent farewell of her, as she swings slowly along uphill 
at that delicious pace of which well-bred and well-handled 
Gulf cattle possess the secret, the rein slack upon her withers, 
the bit lying lightly upon her bars. 

And all suddenly the thought came home to him that this 
was the last time ; that never again, in whatever span of life 
might be his — and the man felt strong springs of life within 
him — would eye and ear of his drink in the shows and sounds 
to which they had been used so long. Suddenly, I say, for 
His Excellency’s summons had come to him as a surprise, and 


14 


IN OLD MADRAS 


had found him immersed in his work, and had thrown upon 
him a burden of hasty transferences, payings-off and callings- 
in, the windings-up of the affairs of years, his own and other 
men’s. These businesses had filled his hands by day and 
deepened his sleep o’ nights for a week past. Now, his work 
done to the last, least item, his hands hung idle for the first 
time in his life, his mind relaxed ; and eye and ear grew sensitive 
to impending change. 

Home thoughts did not excite him, for to Justin India 
was home. An orphan, without, so far as he knew, man or 
woman of his race, he had come out to the East as a boy in 
his teens, a runaway from indentures forced upon him by a 
harsh and rascally guardian. He was a gentleman volunteer, 
one of those ragged esquires -errant who marched and fought 
upon the outside right of the pivot-man of the right company, 
drawing kit and rations, but touching no pay. No service 
was too desperate for these young paladins, so be that it was 
but conspicuous ; they were specialists in the affixing of 
petards, past-masters at two-and-twenty in the art of escalade, 
and learned in the leading of forlorn hopes. They sent in 
their names for everything, and took all chances, biting their 
nails until it should please a jealous mess to recommend them 
to the favourable notice of an autocratic colonel, who, at his 
leisure, might — or might not — forward the recommendation 
to the Honourable Court of Governors at Home. This done, 
in due time, if fever and bullet forbore him, the lad started : 
as cornet, or ensign, according to his service. Thus had ; 
Justin begun, a poor gentleman soldier of fortune. And 
now he was about to leave it all : the familiar sun between ; 
his shoulder-blades, the familiar squeak of his saddle, the i 
kindly whinny of the wheeling kites, and before him upon the i 
white road the little glossy-backed crows drooping their wings | 
in the afternoon heat, and a gray snake crawling. Never again ! j 

He had crossed the Coum River ; the last of the bazaars lay 
behind him ; houses of a better class bordered the way, all 
spick and span — those sowars put match to everything that 
would burn when they went. Homes of wealthy natives these, 
and of English too ; white-walled bungalows embowered in 
shady compounds, where toddy-palms clapped their hands in 
the hot wind as if adding their applause to the measured 
booming of the fort guns. 

From the foliage-shaded gateway of one of these residences 
a tall man in white duck hailed the horseman. 

li Hillo, sir !— yes, you, Major— tak’ a pull at yer meare and 
come in for a bit crack. What ! hass the mon nae mercy upo’ 
himsel’ that he maun gang stravaugin’ aboot i’ the sun to 
the last minute ? Come in, sir, come in l ” 


OLD FRIENDS 


5 


The speaker was “ Old Chisholm,” a retired John Company’s 
servant, domiciled for long with a lady of colour whom he had 
married according to the native rite. He stepped forth into 
the road as he hailed, a great, gaunt fellow, the framework of 
what once had been a fine, up-standing man ; bent now and 
stiffened by years, but strong yet with the constitutional 
toughness of an unspoiled race. The bony, deeply lined face 
was set in a bush of hair ; his voice was deep but gentle ; he 
came forward with extended palm, his left hand at play with 
a little mungoose which twisted and clambered all over him 
as he moved. 

The Major drew rein with the courtesy that was his nature, 
but unwillingly, dreading the delay incidental to alighting at 
the gate of an old acquaintance who was an inveterate gossip 
with the whole of his time upon his hands. Ibn Ali held bit 
and off-stirrup for his master, who was down in one graceful, 
elastic movement, and had the white-clad figure by the 
hand. 

“Mr. Chisholm, I am glad to see ye. Forgive me for not 
having called to pay my respects ; believe me, no discourtesy 
was intended, but, knowing of your trouble, I thought ” 

The other shrugged his broad shoulders, “ Ou, aye, an* 
indeed I am in tribble, ma frien’, and not in a posture to 
receive, as one may say ; but, yersel’ is a deeferent maitter, an 
auld frien’, an* you leaving for Home.” He laid his great 
hand upon his visitor’s shoulder and led him in. “ She is 
deein’, mon, she disna recognise me this sax days.” 

J ustin knew that the reference was to the lady of the house, 
and bent his head in mute sympathy, for the marriage was 
known to have been one of mutual affection and had stood 
the test of years. There was nothing to be said : he had 
dreaded this leave-taking ; a wifeless man, he believed 
himself bad at condolence, longed for the right word, but 
found nothing. But his eyes spoke for him, and the old Scot 
wrung his hand in appreciation. 

“ Yes, I am for England,” said the Major, breaking fresh 
ground ; “ yes, upon Government service — as to which ye will 
excuse me from enlarging. Yes, and I sail to-mo^:ow, as I 
think. Has my old friend any commands ? ’Twill be my 
duty and my pleasure ” 

The ancient Scotsman smiled wistfully and drew his long, 
snufiy moustache through his fingers before replying, and his 
reply, when it came, was wide of the question. “Man, ye are 
weel oot on’t. Na, na ! I am speirin’ naethin*. Aiblins I 
ken as much as yersel’, wha was awa’ up-kintra, as I think, 
when the mischief was a-doin’. I’m laith to spik ill of a 
Stuart, but a shentleman bearin’ that name should never 


l6 


IN OLD MADRAS 


ha’ sethis han’ to — to — what is- laid till him . An’ fwhat’s at 
the boddom o’t ? Loot : juist thot ! The queestion was 
whedder Rumbold’s pindaris or poor Pigot’s should hae the 
shearin’ o‘ the nigger. Sawl o’ me ! ” He took snuff and 
drove, as it were, the whole bad business from his system 
with the potency of a magnificent sneeze. 

“ An’ so ye are takin’ yer last luik roun’ : the ootlandish 
trees, the minars, the heathen temples, juist the auld fameeliar 
features o’ yer step-mither, India. Ye’ll aiblins hae forgot 
the face o’ the mither that bore ye. Twa-and-twanty years 
mak’ a muckle hole in a man’s life. Ye cam’ oot in the ’56, 
the Black Hole year, aw’m thenkin*. I’m no vara like to 
forget that year masel’.” 

“ Faith, no ! — and yourself in ? “ 

“ The ’46. I had ma rizzons for coming, 1 * with a slow, 
pawky wink. “ Ma frien, ye may aiblins has suspeecioned 
that aw’m a hielan’ man. Aweel, I am.” He made the 
avowal with an air of having imparted a family secret, and 
continued : “ Ye’ll remember, maybe, the troubles in the ’45. 
'Twas when ye were a wean, Justin. I wass in the maist o’ 
the f editin'. For example, I took a sma* wound in the 
affair wi’ Cope’s Horse, an’ anither scaith at Preston. Neither 
wass a maitter to mak’ a sang aboot ; but the twa o 1 them 
weakened me for the coorse wather, and I was left ayint at 
a place they ca’ Warrington, wi’ a sair host and weakness 
of the chest contrackit wi’ lyin’ wet. An’ meantime, Justin, 
cam’ the retreat fram Derby ; and as things seemed gangin’ 
agee, it seemed to me that the British Islands were no’ juist * 
a healthy place for me. So, I revairtit to the sea, my oreeginal 
profession ; for I was great at the fushin’. I mind that ma 
first berth was in a West Indiaman in the Mersey ; and fram 
the Islands I fand ma way till the plantations, and fram the 
Chesapeake till this. Yes, I landed at Fort George doun 
yander on my thretty-eighth birthday, whilk mak’s me a man 
o’ the screeptural span the day. Aweel, there’s ma secret; 
ye’re the first mon to wham I’ve tellt it. Wheest ! ye 
slippery sma’ beastie,” he cooed to the lissom creature 
that slid its sinuous length through his caressing fingers 
almost ab nimbly as one of its secular enemies, the snakes. 

Justin smiled sympathetically. The old rebel’s adventures 
had been known to Fort George society for a generation, 
but it was not in him to wound the innocent vanity of a 
garrulous veteran who had landed a penniless adventurer 
thirty-two years earlier, and had won each step by his con- 
duct, had watched the fort surrendered to the French, seen 
it restored to the British, served under Clive at the taking 
and subsequent defence of Arcot, and helped at the making 


OLD FRIENDS 


of s 


kji^u rxviiiiNJJb ij 

of so much history. But if he had calculated upon brief 
farewells he had reckoned without his host. Chisholm, 
whilst talking, had beguiled his guest to the shade of a wild 
mango, where his bearer, obedient to a nod, served wine. 

“Ye maun brak yer rule, Justin, for the auld man’s sake. 
A stoup at pairting, doch-an-doruich, ye ken, the stirrup-cup. 
Be still, ye little torment ; ” this to the mungoose, whose 
sharp, black muzzle and beady eyes peered out from the 
bush of hair about the old man’s ears, now from one shoulder, 
now from its fellow. 

“ This is nae bad Madeira, Justin. Your health, ma frien’ ! 
Bon voyage 1 as poor Lally used to toast : a great man, sir, 
and damnably ill-used by his maisters at the last. I was 
temptit to tak’ sairvice wi’ the French masel’, but have never 
repentit ma deceesion.” 

The men had arisen to touch glasses. The visitor set his 
down, but remained standing with just the hint of expectancy 
in his manner of the guest awaiting an opportunity for taking 
his leave. His host saw but ignored. 

“ Ma commands ? ” he mused. “ Man, there’s nane that 

kens the name o’ me noo. My faither’s hoose is awa’ north 
by Loch Shin. Ye wull never ha’ heard tell o’ Overskaig in 
Sutherland ? ’Twas hame to me aince, but I ha’ not sin the 
place for mair years than I care to think on. I laft it a 
feckless laddie o’ fifteen, with no English (that I picked up 
in Embro’ and the West), aye, a caddy o’ an auld, puir family, 
wi’ a mind to see the warl.” 

Justin, knowing by this time that he was in for it, nodded 
and reseated himself. 

“ An’ I’ve sin it, ye’re thenkin’. Ou, aye, from the ’25 
till the ’45 I wass aye upo’ the move : in Paris awhile, whaur 
I foregaithered wi’ Monsieur Lally that I named the noo ; 
and wi’ mony anither shentleman of fortune of the richt way 
o’ thenkin’. Ye wull no luik gleg upon me if I own to having 
been in the fair trade for some while, and to rinnin’ cargoes 
o’ contraband between Versailles and Embro’.” 

“ Neither of them ports, as I think, Mr. Chisholm,” laughed 
Justin. 

J “ And that’s true, too; but ye must ken that the stuff I 
cairrit wad float in vara fleet water. Aiblins it would be a 
letter between the thicknesses o’ the heel o’ ma brogue; 
aiblins money. Oh, they could trust a Chisholm : nane o’t 
stuck to me. When the Prince landed I wass oot on the 
heather. On the wrang side o’ course, a stranger among the 
clans that drew till him ; for, as ye ken, the Sutherlands, the 
Gunns, the Mackays, and Chisholms were a’ for the Black 
Cockade. ‘ Ma commands ? ”’ He drew breath. “ (The first 


2 


l8 


IN OLD MADRAS 


should be to fill yer quaich. ) Aha, it hass come till me ! See 
here, Justin, gin ye should ever find yersel’ lying wi’ the Black 
Watch, speir for ony mon o’ ma name. There wass mony 
shentlemans, o’ the Campbells and Mackays took the aith 
when that corps wass raisit, and gin there wass an oye o’ ma 
brither’s o’ the soldiering age ’tis ten to ane he wull be in 
that regiment ; more by token there was never vivers or a 
douce leevin’ to be made alang the shore o’ Shin for mair 
than ane at a time. For the caddies it wass aye * Tak’ the 
road, ma son ! ’ And so it falls that the Chisholms are a 
restless name. I wass something given to traivel masel’ . . . 
‘ Ma commands ? ’ ‘ Mountains never meet, but frien’s may.’ ” 
He quoted the proverb in the Gaelic, hitching forward as he 
spoke, and detaching from some underbelt a small straight 
dirk of ancient pattern. “ Tak* it, mon, and wear it until 
ye meet (gin ye ever do) a man o’ the auld Sutherland 
Chisholms, and then, gin ye hae the mind, hand it on till 
him wi’ word fram ane o’ them that’ll ne’er see bonnie Loch 
Merkland mair. No but what they wad be blithe to see 
me : there’s no black bluid atween me an’ ma kin ; ’tis not 

wi’ me as it is wi’ — ” he jerked his thumb towards the 

white bungalow among its trees a quarter-mile away and 
nearer to the Tank of Sao Thome. “Ye wull no’ be takin’ yer 
leave o’ him , aw’m thenkin’ ? ” 

“ Of Colonel Travis ? It is just him that I am riding to 

see. Which reminds me, my time ” 

“ Rest ye, caillach,” growled the old man, putting his 
importunate little pet aside. “ To see him ? ” he glanced up 
so keenly, and hung upon the word so long, that the swish 
of the horsehair fly-whisk and the murmured chanty with 
which Ibn Ali stilled the restless-footed Arab at the gate, 
sounded near in the silence. “Mon, what taks ye till Travis ? ” 
“ He has sent for me,’’ said Justin ; buc the other waved the 
reason aside as irrelevant. 

“ He hates ye like the vara teffie,” he said. 

“ I might dispute that, Mr, Chisholm ; but at any rate I 
have never given him an excuse for ill-will, and have certainly 
never hated him. That we have failed — to — how shall I 
say ? ” 

“ Tcha ! the fallow semply detests ye. He has sent for 
ye ? — and for what ? Ye sail to-morrow at latest: he knows 
sae much, nae doot. Mon, he wad fain ha’ dune ye an 
injury this mony a year, an’ the noo’s his opportunity. Hae 
a care, Justin, hae a care ! ” 

“ I anticipate nothing ” 

“Ye winna be brakin’ bread wi’ the mon,” insisted the 
other, coming to details. 


OLD FRIENDS 


19 


“It is most unlikely. I do not expect to be bidden. I 
take the matter in hand — as to which I am wholly in the 
dark — to be of a business complexion ; but, if he should offer 
b hospitality *‘ 

“ Decline as ye value yer life, mon, and dinna pit ae drop 
o’ his liquor till yer lip. Oh, I ken weel what aw’m sayin’ ; 
ou, aye ; I could hae pit a spoke in his wheel mair than aince 
since we twa fell to leevin’ the life o’ the native. There hass 
bin queer doings in the bungalow over there if I may believe 
my people. The fallow is a violent fallow, with a weakness 
for bhang, and 'tis ane that neither kens nor cares what he 
diz when in his tantrums. What signifies a punkah-wallah 
more or less, or a hubshi Kaffir-boy, think ye ? Snake-bite 
he laid it to, and it may hae bin. 'Tis strange nane o’ 
ma people die that way. I am no the Governor, and 
hanna fashed maser aboot ither folks’ maitters ; but, ye 
air ma frien’, and gin ye air for the Ca Sao Thome I gang 
wi’ ye.” 

“ Indeed, old friend, ye will not ! ” laughed Justin, with 
just a touch of impatience. “ I thank ye from my heart 
for the offer, but I am persuaded it is needless, and, if it 

were otherwise ” the little man leaned slightly forward 

in his seat and shrugged his shoulders as one who would 
imply that he was a soldier and could answer for himself. 
“ See here, Chisholm, to set your mind at rest, I will look 
in upon you on my way back, say in half an hour from 
now.” 

“ An’ thot iss weel thocht of, too ; and gin ye be no’ here 
in forty minutes, I wull raise my people and do masel’ the 
honour o’ calling upo’ ma neighbour for the first time, and 
speirin’ for ye.” 

J ustin arose, declining more wine ; but his host, with some- 
thing still to impart, disclosed an unwonted difficulty in 
making his point. “ Yer pairdon, ma frien’ ; ye’ll no’ thenk 
me inqueesitive, but — ye are for London ; aweel, London 
used to be a gey costly place. Naething for naething there, 
an’ nae muckle for yer siller.” 

Justin nodded a general assent to the proposition. 

“As ye ken, I’ve had the preevilege of guidin’ the ventures 
o’ some o’ yer sairvice this mony years, and I canna help 
kennin’ hoo it stans’ wi’ the maist o’ ye.” Justin was stiffening, 
but his friend persisted. 

“ Come, Major, ’tis kenned that ye are nae a rich man — the 
mair credit till ye, for ye hae had the same chances as the 
lave o’ us o’ shaking the pagoda-tree. But the time is cornin’ 
whan ye’ll want something a wee mair tangible than yer 
scruples .’ 1 


20 


IN OLD MADRAS 


“ Mr. Chisholm, I beg ” 

“ Dinna snap the neb aff yer auld frien’ ! Let me give ye 
a letter o’ credit to my London agent ; at the least he will 
advise ye as to yer investments, and send ye to an honest 
lapidary gin ye are takin’ hame a wheen stanes. Oh, but I’d 
like fine to be allowed to dae mair. Thenk ! I’m weel dune 
by, a warm man, Justin, thretty years o’t, and gettin’ all ma 
time ; and ’pon ma sawl, I’ve nane in the haill warl’, save 
her that’s deein’ within there, to hand it on tae, nor ony j 
alive that I regaird sae kindly as yersel ” 

“ Mr. Chisholm, this is more than brotherly. Ye are a 
friend indeed ; and if ever I should need a helping hand there 
is no one to whom I would turn before yourself, but, at pre- 
sent ” he drew a watch from his fob. “ Good Lord ! how 

time slips whilst chatting with an old friend ! ” He clapped 
for his sais. 

“ Ye’ll nae pairmet me ? ” 

“Not another drop, I thank ye. We’ll not shake hands ; 
expect me under the time.” He swung up into the saddle; 
the Scotsman watched him go. 

“ Prood — prood as a Rajpoot ! I dinna like — but, he hass ! 
a goot little side-arm whateffer : a dab i’ the wame wi’ ma 
faither’s skene dhu wad settle wi’ the prettiest fellow that 
ever trod shoe-leather. But it is short i’ the reach : I wad 
like fine to hae gane wi’ him.” Hi, Justin ! ” he was after 
the slow-pacing Arab with long strides, regardless of his bare 
head. “ Mon, whaur’s yer sword ? ” 

“ Packed and sent aboardship.” 

“ Them ye sail tak’ mine.” 

“ A thousand thanks, no : it is not the weapon of my 
service. Ye were in the Auxiliary Light Horse, I think ; it 
would betray us both, and needlessly, as I am persuaded.” 

“ A sword-stick, then ! I haf the ferry thing, an Italian 
foil-blade in a hollow malacca : ’twill pass for a walking- 
cane.” 

“jAnd , L come _to him mounted ; worse and worse ! More 
thanks, but again no ! ” The mettle of the man made itself 
felt in his final refusal. The mare fidgeted. 

“ Aweel, ye sail nae refuse me this ! ” Chisholm extended ! 
a Mull ewe’s-horn solidly fitted in brass. “ This, and the wee 
dirkie are the twa things laft to me that I brocht fram me 
faither’s roof.” 

;rj“ Add a heart for your friend,” said Justin, and inhaled 
his pinch. Obedient to some private signal, the mare broke : 
the gaunt old man was left twirling his yellow moustache in 
the road. “ ’Tis an unwarrantable resk, whateffer. Travis 
iss a budmash, a cateran ; I haf watched him slip doun and 


OLD FRIENDS 


21 


doun fram Colonel o’ the auld Thirty-ninth — Primus in Indis 
— with a record second only to Coote’s, until he hasna a 
fallow-countryman to cry Cot bless ye ! Aw’m thenkin* 
whether there’ll ha’ bin a white face within his compound 
gates this twa years. That stoory o’ the way he treated his 
young wife hass aye stuck till him.” 


CHAPTER III 


OLD ENEMIES 

“ ’Pon my life he has come after all ! '* the sick man upon 
the charpoy beneath the punkah in the wide bare room of 
Ca Sao Thome was soliloquising. The lapse was no symptom 
of his sickness — he was very sick — but the inveterate habit 
of a European whose intercourse with men of his colour had 
been severed years before, and who permitted himself the 
use of his mother tongue in long confabulations, letting his 
inmost thought loose in self-communings, secure in the 
ignorance of his servants. 

The wasted body turned painfully upon its string mattress, 
the lean, lined face half-hidden, fakir fashion, in an Oriental 
profusion of hair and beard, took on a singularly appre- 
hensive expression as his guest entered. 

The man had been effeminately handsome when in his 
prime ; but his prime was long past. All that the — at that 
day — extravagant and barbaric growth of hair permitted 
to be seen was a pair of sunken eyes veiled by tufted black 
eyebrows, a thin, aquiline nose, and a lofty forehead with 
which life had dealt hardly ; it was ploughed from temple 
to temple with the parallel groovings of worry, vexation, and 
disappointment, and cleft between the eyes by the sharp 
imprint of temper ; but laid across these disfigurements was 
a more lightly traced structure of vertical wrinkles due to 
the contraction of the brows in secret night horrors of self- 
disgust. You shall see this double fretwork upon the fore- 
heads of aged, long-sentence criminals : it gives to a counten- 
ance a singularly forbidding expression. 

The lower face was clothed with a beard of some years* 
growth ; white and full it flowed from cheeks and throat below 
a black down-curving moustache. This, and a V-shaped 
patch of ebon hair upon the lower lip and chin, dividing the 
patriarchal whiteness upon either side of it, gave a sinister 
cast to the emaciated face, with its delicate features and 
harsh expression. 


22 


OLD ENEMIES 


23 


*' Remove the birds,” he said, addressing a Tamil servant, 
who separated and caged the fighting quails and slipped silently 
from the room. His master turned his head with studied 
nonchalance to the visitor who had come in response to his 
urgent request, the man upon whom he had not set eyes for 
i three years, yet whose presence he found as detestably 
familiar as though they had quarrelled and parted yesterday. 

’ Yes, there he stood again, the erect, well-poised figure 
that owed nothing of its soldierly set-up to straps or padding, 
and there, bent upon him, were those experienced, uncom- 
, promising eyes, direct, unsmiling, non-committal as ever, 
and the firm chin and muscular lips with the capacity for 
restrained and courteous speech which he had tested so often — 
all that he had known, line by line, and contour by contour, 
and hated with the hatred of a jealous colleague for twenty 
years. 

To the sick man the comely health, vigour, and sanity of 
his visitor were so many offences. The fellow’s appearance 
was too disgustingly satisfactory. Here was the subordinate 
whom he had sworn to break still unbroken, the comrade 
whom he had injured and maligned in vain, who had silently 
lived down his spite. He loathed him point by point and 
feature by feature with the unpardoning, personal animosity 
of the wrong-doer for the creature whom he has wronged. 

He found himself beginning to shake. He had planned this 
interview, schooled himself for it ; but now, at the first instant 
of contact, discovered that he had miscalculated his endurance ; 
his three years’ secretion of hatred came near to choking him : 
it surged to his lips with an almost physical revulsion ; he 
gulped it down. Not yet — not yet — presently. 

“ Haw, Justin, how d’ye do ? I protest I am glad to see ye. 
Infinitely obliged, I’m sure. Be seated, I beg. Pardon my 
want of ceremony ; I grow curst uncivil : 'tis the price one pays 
for this life . . . servants, only servants to consider, ye see. 
What ! no chair ? None, as I live ! I have but few white 
callers, ye know ; but still I have a chair or two somewhere. 
My bearer shall smart for this, begad ! Excuse my not rising. 
I get damned helpless. Will ye be pleased to collect cushions, 
rugs, anything as a makeshift ? Thanks, I swear I am be- 
! holden to ye. 11 

The visitor had not opened his lips since entering ; he had 
bowed, and bowed again. His reception surprised him, the 
manner of it was all wrong. Curt coolness might have passed, 
or any degree of civil reserve, but this offhand, de haut en bas 
assumption of a superior geniality rang false : there was 
nothing in the past relations of the two to justify it. The 
man upon the couch had not offered his hand at his entering, 


24 


IN OLD MADRAS 


nor pleaded disablement in excuse ; yet some infirmity seemed 
in the case, for the right hand and wrist lay mocionless within 
the loose swathes of a silken shawl. All the life of the members 
seemed concentrated in those fleshless yellow fingers of the 
left hand, which tapped restlessly upon the lid of a small box 
within reach. 

An awkward silence fell, mere vacuity, which Justin sought 
to fill with some murmured commonplace. The other was 
not attending, was insensible to the solecism and broke into a 
second soliloquy. “ Damme, the fellow has worn well, dev’lish 
well ! Ye are standing the climate better than any of us,” 
he pursued, rousing, and addressing his visitor directly and 
clearly as one addresses a foreigner. “ ’Tis not your liver 
that is taking ye Home. Lucky dog ! Ye were always a fellow 
of careful habits. Well, the mess had its laugh, but ’tis your 
turn to-day — at what is left of us.” 

Justin bowed with a grave little smile, attentive and watch- 
ful, but said nothing. He had no small-talk, nor desired to 
prolong the interview. He had arranged his cushions at his 
host’s left hand, not too near : the room was large, hot, and 
empty of furniture. He observed with some surprise that the 
punkah hung motionless. He was amazed at the change in 
his late colonel, but hoped that he was successfully concealing 
his astonishment. The man was altered out of knowledge. 
He had come unprepared for such disguise. Not alone the beard, 
but the hair, white as old-age and long as a woman’s, seemed 
extraordinary in one whom he had known as the most point 
device exponent of the military mode of his day. 

Travis had adopted the native habit — loose trousers, cummer- 
bund, and voluminous silken jacket. 

With Justin it was a fundamental conception that an 
Englishman in the East should respect his blood, and that 
declension to the native standard of morals was petty treason 
to the Company whose salt he ate. The man refused on 
principle to condescend in meats, dress, or manners. “ Depend 
on’t,” he had once said, provoked to speak out by finding a 
subaltern chewing betel, “ you won’t conciliate these people 
by sinking to their level. They appreciate caste ; let us main- 
tain our own, one equally above Brahmin and Muslim.” He 
was one of the few who never wore mufti, who would have as 
soon accepted dustoor upon a regimental contract as ridden 
with the short stirrup, and would have only relinquished his 
queue with his life. 

To such a precisian the spectacle presented by Colonel 
Travis was deplorable. The fellow had let himself go. 

The sensitive vanity of the dSclassS was conscious of his 
guest’s tacit disapproval, and resented it whilst endorsing its 


OLD ENEMIES 


25 

justice. The man felt his ground giving : he had lured his 
old subordinate to his house for a purpose of his own, but had 
mismanaged the piece badly ; here, at the rising of the 
curtain, the other filled the centre of the stage, whilst his 
own pretension to the leading part was discounted by the 
costume of his choice, and his hectoring to the weak im- 
pertinence of a native. 

“ Damn it ! ” he muttered in his beard, “ I should have 
known better ; a fellow in his shirt-tails can’t stand up to 
uniforms even in private.” 

In a word, he saw himself as he was, and his enemy as he 
might have been : one of those men who carry their middle-age 
so easily — the sort that throws off or pulls through illness to 
which fellows of bulkier physique succumb ; a man with un- 
suspected reserves of endurance at call, who had repeatedly 
worn down younger and more muscular men upon the march, 
until at length “ Justin’s luck ” had become a proverb "with 
his mess. 

“ Ye don’t answer me, I say ! (Why the devil can’t he 
speak ? ”) snarled the sick man with the sudden impatience 
of an invalid. “ I asked ye why ye have come to see me, eh ? ” 
(He had asked nothing of the sort, but was unaware that the 
question which was puzzling him had not passed his lips.) 

“ I beg your pardon ; I assure you I did not catch what ye 
said. Silk scrapes so, ye know. Why ? — well — my dear sir, 
because ye sent for me. Why else ? ” 

“ That’s so ; I did, begad,” muttered the other. 

“ And now that I’m here what^can I do for ye, or rather, 
what d’ye want me to do for ye ? ” 

The distinction savoured of fineness, but the speaker was 
constitutionally wary; also he knew his man. 

“ ’Twas monstrous good of ye to come,” said the other, 
fencing the question. “ Considering the terms we have been 
upon, I never thought to see ye under my roof. My roof ! ” 
His eye roved over the walls and floor : a slipper too small for 
a man’s use lay in a corner. “ Custom of the country, Justin, 
but ’tis the very devil. Ye did well to stick to your bachelor 
quarters ; what with the women, and the children (what on 
earth is a gentleman to do with a brown family at Home ? — 
or here ?) and the debts (this place is mortgaged for more 
than it will ever fetch. That is why the sowkar fellow don’t 
foreclose). Ye’ll be saying ‘What has the man done with the 
pagodas ? * Phew ! they simply went. You are going Home, 
they tell me” (a keen, veiled glance went after the words), 
“ but there’s no going Home for me : the only way out of ! it 
is to die of it, sir ; yes, die out of it and cheat the sharks. 
And that is what I’m doing as fast as I can.” His voice 


26 


IN OLD MADRAS 


slowed down to a husky whisper, his face turned from his 
visitor, his hand went creeping out to that box upon the table 
within reach. Justin, with pity in his fine face, saw what 
was coming, and frowned slightly as his comrade of other years, 
his commanding officer and enemy since, swallowed the drug 
which had ruined him, but without which he was now incapable 
of concentrated thought or continuous conversation. 

In another minute he was another man : his eye filled, his 
voice gathered volume, there seemed less languor or more 
purpose in his attitude. 

“ Why did ye come ? ” he asked again ; and this time there 
was a depth of crafty undertone which did not altogether 
escape the man he addressed. 

“ Are Plassy men getting so common ? ” began Justin, but 
the other broke in: 

“ Pelasi ? I’m not quite the last. There’s Rumbold. You 
are to carry his despatches, I hear. He must have granted 
you an interview. You will have sate at his table, or will 
to-night before sailing ? I thought as much ! — and will drink 
his wine (as Stuart drank Pigot’s the night he betrayed him). 
Your pardon ; no offence ! O yes, Rumbold is a Pelasi man, 
took his wound there. When he offers ye his hand presently, 
will it feel sticky ? Mind ye, there’s Pigot’s blood between 
the fingers. Ye know it ! ” with sudden heat which as suddenly 
cooled. “ Ah, Pelasi ; yes, I was there.” He drew deeper 
breath and for the moment looked almost noble. “You came 
out later, Wandewash was your first affair.” Justin nodded. 
“ But, Pelasi; there was never another battle like that in our 
time, or in any other, surely. ’Twas the beginning of it all. 
Hotter affairs perhaps, but we did know the odds and we 
didn’t know the niggers wouldn’t fight. And, as ye are think- 
ing, we need not backbite one another, for there’s mighty 
few of us left. Twenty years of the climate plays the deuce 
with a man’s constitution. (It hasn’t touched his, begad !) 
Ye are pitying me. I swear I will not be pitied ; d’ye hear 
me ? Tut — tut ! Your pardon’s begged, ’tis part of my 
complaint — physical, purely physical. A damnable habit, 
this, ye are thinking,” he tapped the box, “ and the fellow 
is a slave to it, a man that was once a fine soldier, but, damme, 
what would ye have me do ? It will be the death of me, I 
grant ye ; but to swear off is past mortal endurance. (Does 
he think I’ve not tried that he looks at me like that ?) I 
learned the trick from him, a man if ever the Almighty made 
one, but it gripped him ; I’m told he’s dying.” 

Justin divined that he spoke of Clive, and that he had not 
heard of his death. The invalid seemed exciting himself, 
talking against time, nerving himself for a task to which he 


OLD ENEMIES 


27 


found himself unequal. There was nothing for Justin but to 
await the man’s pleasure : he had his own hand to play later. 

“ There were sixteen of us at the council of war in the tope 
before the action,” muttered Travis. “ As junior I had spoken 
first. ‘ Attack at once ! * was my word. Coote smacked his 
thigh and backed me when his turn came, but the Chief was 
cold. Fifty -three heavy bullock-guns served by French are 
brutally heavy odds against six little brass field-pieces.” 

Still Justin waited and watched for an opening. How the 
man had fallen ! It was three years since Colonel Travis had 
sent in his papers. Not a day too soon ; a day sooner would 
have been better for a reputation which had then escaped the 
smirch of a distressing failure of nerve upon the occasion of 
a Moharrum riot ; a failure sudden, abject, irrecoverable, such 
as lies in wait for the victims of the drug. Since that day the 
regiment had never beheld the face of its former commandant. 

That Justin had seen nothing of him meanwhile was not 
surprising. It was many years since the men had been upon 
any but service terms. They had messed together, fought 
and marched in company without exchanging a word that was 
not demanded by the exigencies of their duties. All this had 
been notorious to their subalterns and colleagues who had 
amused themselves with watching Travis’s bitter but impotent 
malice, and the cool, deferential displeasure with which J ustin 
held his enemy at arm’s-length. The trouble, whatever it was, 
had begun when the men were subalterns, had continued 
whilst they commanded opposite wings, and in no way had 
abated when one was promoted to the colonelcy, nor when 
that brief period of command had closed in disgrace. 

Whatever had been the opinion of the mess in the old days, 
the sympathy of his fellows had for long been accorded to the 
man who in a difficult position had borne himself with dignity, 
and had never been known to speak ill of a persistent traducer. 

“ Yes, I sent for ye — (didn’t think for a moment he’d come, 
though) — sent for ye, Justin, to ask ye a plain question — or 
it might run to two.” 

It was coming then, coming at last. Major Justin’s eye 
was upon his interrogator. He signified assent by a grave, 
silent inclination. 

“ Why didn’t ye send your cartel ? The mess expected it 
of ye ? ” 

“ Neither you nor I, Travis, have at all times governed 
ourselves according to the opinion of the mess.” 

Travis’s eye contracted, he sucked in his moustache. (” A 
compliment paid to himself and a back-hander for me. He 
was always my master in repartee, damn him ! ”) he muttered ; 
then aloud, “ I repeat, why didn’t ye send me your friend ? * 


28 


IN OLD MADRAS 


“ When ? ” 

“When! he says ‘when.’ Curse ye, sir, ye shall not 
fence my question ! When, indeed ! Well, after Wandewash.” 

“ The circumstances of that affair, Colonel Travis ” began 

Justin, weighing his words; but the other took him up im- 
petuously. 

“ The circumstances of that affair are not unknown to me, 
sir. You saved my life. Have I ever repudiated the service ? 
That I bitterly resented it, and do still resent it, is beside the 
mark. Enough that ye put it out of my power to send my 
friend to you. But I had given ye ample occasion before 
that affair, and have, as I think, given ye enough since, to 
justify ye in seeking, or seizing, or making — have it your 
own way — a path out of an impossible position. And now 
ye are going Home. (The fellow thinks to see her !) — and 
will see her.” The voice ran up into head-notes, the face 
grew distorted with passion, the fingers of the left hand con- 
tracted, but the hidden right hand, which Justin now suspected 
to be paralysed, lay motionless under its wraps. 

“ Her — her,” he repeated himself with a smack of the lip 
and facial contortions painful to witness. 

“ Colonel Travis,” interrupted Justin, rising, “ I have entered 
your house at your particular request, upon a matter of busi- 
ness — you expressly wrote * business.’ But there are matters 
which I cannot and will not discuss with ye.” 

“You shall, sir. You shall pledge me on the Gospels that 

ye will neither ” 

“Not another word, sir ” 

“ Neither see the woman nor communicate ” 

“ I beg to wish ye a good-day,” interposed Justin rapidly, 
his hand upon the hanging chick in the doorway. 

“ Cross that threshold at your peril, sir. I mean it ! ” 
cried the sick man, with a kind of breathless savagery, sitting 
suddenly up and whipping a pistol from under that shawl 
with his hitherto concealed right hand. “ She is my wife still,” 
covering his man with his weapon at the toise. “ Swear ! I 
say, swear ! Down on your knees, sir. I’ll give ye whilst 
I count five. One — two — three ! Swear, ye fool ! ... or I 

blow the brains out of your head — four — fi ” 

The explosion in that confined space seemed to lift the 
ceiling ; smoke filled the room, through which Justin, still 
standing, saw his would-be murderer drop the smoking barrel 
and wring his pistol-hand with a gesture of pain for a moment 
ere he snatched a phial from beneath his pillow. He divined 
that the man was about to destroy himself. In two strides 
he was beside the couch and had taken the phial from the 
nerveless fingers that held it, and was bending over his enemy 


OLD j ENEMIES 29 

The wretch fell back, bleating hoarsely : “Let me die ! You 
are the better man — always were. Ye have me all round. 
To miss such a mark ! — overcharged, of course ; the thing 
threw high and has gone near to breaking my wrist." He lay 
back gasping and whimpering, a deplorable spectacle. Justin, 
standing over him, had released his enemy’s wrist ; straight- 
ening his back, he drew three long breaths, collecting himself 
and counting. When his voice was steady enough he spoke. 

“ Travis, listen to me, recollect yourself, sir ; I have news 
for ye. Is it possible that ye have not heard ? Have ye no 
correspondent in England ? None ? Good God ! Then ye 
did not know that your wife has been dead these twelve 
months." 

The speaker’s voice, well governed as it was, had a husky 
break in it; but his eye carried conviction. 

“ Dead ? What d’ye mean ? How ? When ? Begad, 

a minute back I’d not have taken it from ye. Dead ? Are 
ye sure ? But why didn’t ye say so before I fired ? ’’ 

“ You would not have believed me ; ye own as much. But 
I knew it, and besides " 

“ Besides what ? Ye saw my hand shaking ? It was that. 
The fellow sees what a wreck of a thing I am got to, and 
prefers to stand his chance, begad ! — He was safer so than on 
the move, by the Lord ! And I could snuff a candle with the 
hair-trigger in my time." 

Justin looked down upon this spectacle of ulcerated vanity 
with disgust. What held him there ? It would seem that 
he had something to ask in his turn, and that the moment 
for asking it had come. 

Nineteen men out of twenty would have been hurried by 
emotion into hasty action of some sort by such an outrage as 
this to which he had been subjected. He had been enormously 
surprised, and his pulses were still hammering, for even an 
old soldier, habituated to the ruses and night alarms of eastern 
warfare, cannot look into a loaded barrel for five seconds 
without a shock ; but the resolution which had held him 
rigid before that barrel, lest by rash movement he should 
convert to a catastrophe what he hoped was but a threat, 
kept him steady in the dangerous moment of reaction. He 
saw his game clearly now ; reproaches would spoil all ; he was 
experiencing the elation of the player who sees that a slip 
of his opponent has given him mate in three moves. 

Vacant apathy had followed the anguish of chagrin. The 
crash of the discharge had been succeeded by the breathless 
silence of a listening household, encroached upon now by the 
stealthy rustle of approaching garments and the pit-a-pat of 
unshod feet : the chicks were separated by brown fingers, but 


30 


IN OLD MADRAS 


Justin gave no heed to anything but the supine figure upon the 
charpoy moving uneasily beneath his eye. 

“ Go now in the devil’s name ! I have failed again. I 
always do fail where you come in ; always have. Now go. 
Isn’t it enough to have scored the last trick of the rubber ? . 

Tisn’t like you, Justin, to stand there watching me wriggle 
like a broken-backed snake. Be off, I say ; tell any tale ye 
like to the Fort ; say I was drunk, or had taken drugs (ye saw 
me take the stuff) ; tell ’em I am mad, if ye like : only go ! Ye 
were a fool to come here to tempt me ; ’twas all I wanted 
ye for.” 

“ But not all I want of you. Come, Travis, ye’ll admit ye 
owe me something. I had hoped when your message came — i 
had fancied — ’fore Heaven, man, I find it hard to refer to ; 
her in your presence. She is with God. What of the children ? ” ' 

“ Yours ? ” whispered the other with the spite of a chained | 
fiend. 

Justin’s mouth tightened for an instant, but as soon relaxed. ! 
“ That stab comes twenty years too late. You can’t hurt 
me, man, nor her any more. Ye know that I know ; and I 
know that you know ; why keep up the pretence ? ” 

“ Jealousy, my infernal jealousy,” whined the other. 

“ There were children when ye sent her home, a boy and 
a baby girl. They’ll be grown-up by this, though ’tis hard to 
believe it. What have ye done — what are ye doing for them ? 
Come, there is yet time ; take the^right-hand turn at this 
last, and permit me to help ye.” 

“ You ? ” Those rugged black brows lifted in sheer amaze- 
ment ; the question, considered as a word, was unpromising, 
but the tone raised Justin’s hopes. 

“ And why not I ? ” 

“ But ’tis incredible. Ye never mean ” 

“ But ’tis just what I do mean. I ask ye to believe that 
it shall be my duty, my pleasure, my privilege to seek them 
out ; yes, I’ll say it — as their poor dead mother’s early 
friend, Travis — to assist them, if they need it. And if you, 
even now, Travis, would use me as your servant — in this 
particular, mind, in this particular. Think man, otherwise I 
come to them unavouched, a stranger ; but a line from you, 
some personal trinket, a signet with your crest for the lad ; 
your sword ; momy if you are able — they may be in want.” 

The men’s eyes met in along look; the Major’s overcame. 

He knew that he had scored again. 

“ ’Ron my life, Justin, ye are the most wonderful fellow 
in India ; I rob ye of ” 

“ Say no more, Travis, I beg ! ” cried the conqueror, with 
low vehemence, his lip a-tremble. 


OLD ENEMIES 


3i 


“ But I will say it. Have not I led ye the devil of a life ; 
aye, for twenty years ; kept ye back in the service; injured 
your name ? ” 

“ No, Travis, not that.” 

“ But I did my worst. Jealousy, sheer jealousy 1 Yes, 
and inveigled ye to this room and sent a bullet point-blank 
at your head. (And he stands there and asks me to appoint 
him trustee for the children. My God !) ” 

“ And you will do it.” 

“ Gad, then, I suppose I must,” whimpering weakly. 

“ Give — Gi ” the capacity for connected speech was ebbing 

from him, the dim eye roved, the hand went exploring in the 
direction of that fatal box. 

“ What, again ? ” protested Justin, dreading a second 
resort to opium ; but the other lay gasping and collapsed as 
if at the^point of death. It was of the first necessity that he 
should live through the next ten minutes. The shuttered 
room seemed stifling him : his guest glanced at the idle 
punkah. 

“ No use . . . she stopped it . . .to listen better,” whispered 
the ostensible master of the house with scarcely moving lips. 
“ If I mayn’t have my drug, give me my dram,” he pleaded, 
indicating the bottle. 

Justin, wary as ever, drew the stopper and sniffed; the 
peculiar aroma of aniseed reassured him : it was native-made 
rack. Travis gulped the spirit, smacked his lips feebly; and 
was presently as much of a man again as he ever would be. 

“ See here, Justin, ye must know, for ’tis servants’ gup, 
that I’m a squeezed lime. That prize money ? the mohurs ? 
Gone ! This woman keeps me, not I her : the land, this 
bungalow, and all that’s on it, are hers ; or, well, his who 
can first get in and keep in when I’m gone, as I shall be 
presently.” 

“ Man, where’s your nest-egg ? ” asked Justin bluntly, who 
had listened to this sort of thing from dying lips before in his 
time, and judged by the penitent’s shifty eye that it was with 
him as with others : there would be at the Ca Sao Thome some 
secret hoard well hidden from dusky housemates, but available 
for momentary use at a pinch. 

“ (Must I trust this fellow ? ) ” Travis muttered into his 
beard. “ (It seems so.) D’ye see that brace of pistols on the 
wall there ? ” He caught his breath with an eye on the hanging 
chick in the doorway. “ They should be cased, of course, but 
I like ’em better so ; they’ve hung there this many years ; 
handy, ye understand. Native servants all thieves. Well,” 
a long pause, “ ye may take ’em to the children from their 
father.” 


32 


IN OLD MADRAS 


Justin glanced across the room. The weapons were holster 
arms of the ordinary service pattern of the day ; he lifted 
them from their hooks and weighed them in hand in turn, 
watched furtively by the other from under drooping lids, his 
purpose already wavering. 

“ For her children, one apiece, as they are, mind, as they 
are,” the invalid gasped breathlessly, pinning himself to a 
purpose he feared to fall back from, and already to all appear- 
ance far down the hill there is no reclimbing, but in reality 
simulating greater weakness than he felt. 

“ These,” said Justin with meaning, “ are loaded. I am 
in a borrowed saddle this afternoon, a civilian’s saddle, without 

holsters. Will ye send these to my ” 

“ I will not, sir. Have I not this moment committed them 

to your own hand ? What the devil ? ” 

The Maj or laid the weapons upon the foot of the charpoy. 
“ Ye must trust me, Travis. What are the charges ? ” 

The sick man agonised dumbly for a minute. It was the 
bringing to the birth of the most shameful secret of a 
shameful life. 

“ Gems,” said he evasively ; “ just gems, nothing more.” 
“Not the lost loot — the Bexwara loot?” said Justin 
just above a whisper, and tingling, for this touched his own 
honour, and the honour of his regiment. The question jumped 
from him, the final result of long, unconscious brain-work 
upon his part, and when it fell from his lips was as great a 
surprise to himself as to the man whom he questioned. He 
would have called it an inspiration. 

“Confound ye! No! Certainly not! How dare ye insult 
me ! ” replied Travis, making some futile effort to assert 
himself ; but under the dreadful, unwincing scrutiny of the 
eyes of the man upon whom he had years before vainly sought 
to fasten the stigma of his own theft, his nerve finally failed. 
Some heart trouble made him clutch his breast and gasp 
feebly for relief. He believed himself in the article of death ; 
the whole inner structure of deceit broke up with him ; 
necessity to confess to some one was the one overpowering 
sensation. The pang passed ; he lay white and collapsed ; 
his eyes opened and met Justin’s with a new expression. 
“ Gad, I’m too far gone to keep it up any longer. Some of the 
stuff might be ; and then again it isn’t. Yes , then, yes ! ” 
heaving his secret off his bosom. “ Have it your own way if 
it pleases ye to clear yourself at the expense of a dying brother 
officer ! ” 

“ Travis ! ” 

“ O, you’ll be a rich man now, worth a plum. ’Tis all 
yours ; there isn’t a man in the present officers’ mess, nor a 


OLD ENEMIES 


33 

sergeant, nor a private who was in that affair, only you and 
I* Take the beastly things and keep them if ye will, but 
keep your mouth shut until I’m gone.” 

“ Travis, how could ye ? No, I’m not thinking of my- 
self. I was able, praise God, to clear myself. That charge 
never stuck as some of yours did (none permanently 
though, all forgotten). But this wasn’t like you ; think, the 
regiment ” 

“ Don’t look like that ! Take your eyes off me, sir, I tell 
ye ! Our fellows ? They took their chances, I took mine. 
They are dead and gone, every man jack of them. (Oh, I 
give ye my word I've kept count.) The affair lies between 
our two selves. Besides, these are not merely the N’wab’s 
State housings ; it is less simple. Some of the stones I came by 
fairly, some of the others I passed one at a time when on leave 
in Calcutta. I made a mixed-up matter of it from policy. 
I swear I could not separate the things now myself, nor could 
any man living. Ye must take to the business as it stands : 
keep the stuff or hand it over to the brats.” 

Justin paced the length of the room softly, his hands behind 
his back, considering his position and duty in the light of this 
amazing revelation. The pistols lay where he had placed 
them. The wretch upon his charpoy muttered on and on. 
“ The grandest jewels, Rutnapura gems, Mysore carbuncles, 
and some pigeon-blood Burmese, the finest of all. There’s 
more than one six-carat stone among them, but I’ve never 
dared offer them to a sowkar by way of raising money on them : 
too many of ’em are named stones, known by repute, at any 
rate, to every goldsmith’s bazaar in Southern India. Paris 
the only market for ’em ; and how was I to get away without 
ready money ? ... up to my eyes in debt since I was a 
subaltern. I swear I’ve applied for long leave a dozen times, 
or thought about it ; but some damned thing came between 
every time. See now, over a year ago I thought all my plans 
were laid ; but just in the very nick that infernal kite Rumbold 
swoops upon the French factories ; no Paris for me ! Then 
my heart gave out, and here you have me. 

“The Colonel shouldn’t have shown ’em to us — you and me, ye 
remember, none else. The sight of that big ruby, the * Heart 
of Rama ’ the natives call it (’tis there somewhere ; I’ve not 
dared to look at it for years past)— the very glow of the thing, 

I say, was enough to turn the head of an archbishop. But 
it didn’t turn mine, at first, that is. ‘ Put them under guard, 
sir,’ I said (ye remember), but the fool must needs keep them 
in his quarters over-night, the N’wab’s house, a ramshackle 
native palace. ‘ The best guard for stuff like this,’ says he, 

* is to let no one know ye have it.’ 


3 


34 


IN OLD MADRAS 


" Poor Challoner ! dead on his bed next morning, a frightful 
object, a pitch-plaster over his mouth and a knife-wound in 
his heart ; and the loot gone. Not a soul of us had heard a 
sound, not a sentry had seen any one pass the lines. You 
remember how we turned the place upside-down, but found 
nothing.” 

“ How then ? ” asked Justin, turning upon his heel. 

“ I’m coming to it. Ye shall know everything ; and when ye ; 
do ye shall judge whether I, or the man ye are to dine with 
to-night, comes out best ; there’s no blood between my 
fingers ; I never harmed any man but yourself. Loot ? 
What is loot ? I’ll take my oath that the stuff in those i 
barrels was come by more cleanly than Pigot’s big diamond 
that he bragged so about, or those mortgages that cost him 
his life. Listen now. (The loot was gone, absolutely gone. I 
Ye admit so much ?) I had taken my turn at rounds that j 
night. A white full moon it was, an impossible time for 
surprise or robbery : it made us all careless. One could see 
a jackal cross the road at a hundred paces ; the brute’s coat 
might not show, but his shadow did, skating on the white as 
black as ink. It struck me that our horse-lines were restless. 
The beasts had had a hard day of it and should have been 
quiet, yet here one and there another blew, half arose, and 
lay down again. Then one near the well got to his feet with 
a plunge and snorted ; I heard him lash out, his shoe shone in 
the moon like silver, and the blow sounded dull , as if it had 
got home. There’s something wrong, thought I, and went 
to see. There, close to the brute’s heels lay a man, flat upon 
his face, as he had been caught by the hoof whilst wriggling 
down the line upon his belly in the shadow cast by the horses. 

He was stone dead, his temple driven in, stark naked, greased 
all over, a professional thief, as I took it, a bichri between his 
teeth, and close by his hand a little tight bundle — these. 
The Bexwara loot, ye’ll say. But were they ? That is 
exactly the point. There ye have it. The regiment had lost 
something, I own ; and I had found something, I’ll admit. 
Mind ye, ’twas impossible to identify ; the thief had broken 
everything out of its setting, ye remember. ’Twas a parcel 
no bigger than a goose-egg, just loose stones ; and whose ? 
Tell me that ! That was precisely the question. You might 
have answered it in one way, I answered it in another. I took 
that dead nigger by his top-knot, dragged him two steps to 
the well-side, and dropt him in. The stones were mine, and 
they are mine. Give them to me. I’ve changed my mind, I 
tell ye.” 

The miserable wretch had slipped back to his normal self : 
half arising, he made a feeble snatch at the pistols where they 


OLD ENEMIES 


35 


lay a.t his feet ; but another spasm seized him, he fell back 
gasping ; the attack passed, he lay panting. 

Justin, without replying, was trying pens ; the other, regain- 
ing self-control, nodded. 

“ Ye play for safety. I don’t blame ye. An authority is 
what you want ; word it your own way, but make it irre- 
vocable, for there’s a devil on the watch behind that chick, 
and there’ll be seven at my elbow directly. (’Pon my soul, 
I doubt it he wins clear of the bungalow as it is ; he won’t if 
they have an inkling of what he carries.) Be quick with it, 
man, and make sure work, for the yellow Jezebel that owns 
me will twist the whole story out of me to-night, and I shall 
find myself denying everything I’ve told ye, petitioning the 
Governor, memorialising the Honourable Court by the next 
mail ; so make it a tight deed of gift, and be quick, man, quick, 
for I’m sinking.” 

Justin did not reply ; his pen moved sedately ; the result lay 
boldly legible, free from blot or interlineation. He read : 
“I, Maurice Fane Travis, late colonel of the Honble. East 
India Company’s thirty-ninth regiment of foot, herewith give 
and make over absolutely and irrevocably, of my own free 
will and motion, to Wade Justin, major of the above regiment, 
two pistols with their charges, supposed to be gems, but at this 
time of giving unexamined and unverified by the said Justin, 
to have and to hold, use, convert, sell, exchange, or realise, 

; as he may think fit, in trust for my two children lawfully be- 
gotten of my late wife, Agatha Travis, born Draycott ; to wit, 
Draycott Sigismund Travis and Susan Agatha Travis, or the 
survivor of them, in equal shares, or, failing either of them, 
to the Honourable Court of Directors of the East India Com- 
pany ; and this deed I execute at my own house called the 
Casa Sao Thome, near to Fort St. George, Madras City, this 
14th day of June in the year of our Lord 1778.” He read it 
I slowly through to his man aloud. 

“ Now, Travis, your name to this.” He offered the 
| pen. 

“ Gad, Justin, ye should have been something better than 
a major of foot. What a headpiece ! and ’tis me ye have to 
i thank. Clive would have sent ye on political service once, but 
I put my spoke in. This must be witnessed, ye are saying ? 
He poised the quill doubtfully, but Justin’s prompt initiative 
left him no time for repentance. In response to his clap 
there was a scuffling behind the curtain as of an eavesdropper 
rising from the floor ; the hangings rustled ; a woman filled 
the doorway, tall and stout, bold-eyed and sullen and but 
half- veiled — no woman of the south, but a pure-blood Rohilla, 
stolen years since in some Mahratta raid, a promoted slave 


IN OLD MADRAS 


36 

since. At her master’s bidding she approached and was told J 
what was required of her. 

“ What is he making thee do ? ” she asked insolently, 
hardly caring to hold in place with her teeth the pretence of a 
veil. Her black eyes moving from host to guest in doubt, rested 
at length upon the paper ; she pouted ; her brown, many-ringed 
fingers twitched. 

“ Have a care ; she will tear it,” said her master softly, but, 
as he spoke, the woman pounced ; Justin, forewarned, adroitly 
caught her wrists ; she flung herself upon the floor shrieking. 

“ What am I, and what have I done that my lord hates me, 
then ? What is it that he is giving to this Kaffir ? Ai ! ai ! 
light of my eyes, hast thou not told me a thousand times that 
he is sheitan ? Is there not blood between your houses ? 

Is this not he of whom my lord talks in his sleep, whom 
he curses when drunk ? Has it not been - knife him ! ’ 

*- shoot him ! ’ ! poison him ! ’ -• strangle him ! ’ all these 

years ? And now, whilst my lord lies here weaker than a 
new-dropped kid, this budmash rides to his door and strides in 
boldly and bids him sign his living away, and calls me — me — 
to set my signet to the theft ! Thou knowest the house is 
mine, and the other houses, and the garden beside the tank, 
and the small field with the well : all mine ! ” She rushed 
into domestic details, until breath failed. “ Sign ? ” she 
shrieked, “I will cut off my hand first!” and struggled 
lithely, snapping at the restraining fingers with betel-stained 
teeth. 

Justin, as ill-placed as a guest might be, turned to his host 
a glance of mute reproach, and detected a fleeting smile of 
cynical amusement flicker beneath the moustache before the 
man aroused himself to turn upon his housemate a jet of 
vile abuse. 

“ Fool, beast, daughter of a noseless mother, low-caste 
Afghan ! did not I buy thee, a starved little slut, from an 
up-country horse-dealer for a spavined Gulf Arab and a keg 
of Government powder ? One word more of this and I will 
sell thee to grind dhall for a black Malabari Jew ! ” 

The paroxysm subsided ; she listened through her sniffs to 
a brief imperative order, couched in vernacular terms of un- 
translatable vigour, and prepared herself to obey. Her 
master, seeing her hesitate, deigned to protest, as Justin 
saw when the man upon the charpoy joined his finger-tips 
above his heart and flung them wide again with an oath. 
Not that the woman believed him ; crouched upon the 
matting, her shoulders still heaving, her cloudy eyes exploring 
her master’s face, it was plain that she thought him lying, 
but, feeble as he seemed, who could gauge the limits of his 


OLD ENEMIES 


37 


authority ? Not a curtained woman, who in her time had seen 
high-handed doings behind the purdah, and was not prepared 
to push matters to extremes with this strange, fierce, white 
lord of hers. There had been a shot but a minute before — 
fired by whose hand ? and at whom ? The smell of gun- 
powder smoke still hung in the room and frightened her, for, 
east or west, a woman is afraid of a gun. She trembled in 
the presence of the unknown. 

In a word, race told ; her sex and a servile life hampered 
her will as her sari clogged her limbs. Getting to her knees, 
she inked the bezel of her thumb-ring, and impressed the 
paper as directed by Justin’s finger. 

“ Go, now, my heart,” murmured Travis. She arose and 
went, hanging her head like a whipped child and sulkily 
dragging her feet. 

Once more, and for the last time, the men looked into one 
another’s faces. It was Travis who broke the silence. 

“ You have never asked me why. Ye have the right to 
ask ” 

“ I’ll not pretend to misunderstand ye, Travis, but why 
distress yourself further ? Ye have made amends ; ye are 
ill and low. I freely forgive ye.” 

“ But, begad, I’ll not be forgiven by any man alive, sir, 
and ye shall know. ’Twas jealousy, my confounded jealousy ; 
but had I no excuse for ? ” 

“ Stop man, I beg.” 

Ye loved her.” 

Justin winced at the thrust as he had not winced at the 
I shot. The paper he was folding shook, his eyes blinked 
l rapidly, his lips were sucked in and held for a moment, then 
l he was himself once more, and spoke. 

“ I did, and do,” he murmured in accents that seemed to 
I trickle from his very heart. 

“ Yes, Agatha married the wrong man — the wrong man ! ” 
L* muttered Travis, with black brows drawn down over closed 
I eyes. 

There was silence in the room before the other spoke again. 

Travis, I am waited for ; I must be going, but, before 
I go, touch my hand. I have my confession to make too : 

S I did not know it until this minute ; but I do believe I have 
been hating ye.” 

« Singular way of showing it,” whispered the other with an 
► infinite weariness as the hands met that had not met for 
I twenty years. 

Justin arose ; it was time for him to be gone. Strange for 
a man who had lived so frugally, and knew himself to be as 
[ poor as he knew himself to be, to have refused two fortunes 


IN OLD MADRAS 


38 

within an hour, a bribe and a gift, and to have had a third 
confided to him in trust. 

At the compound gateway he walked into the arms of 
Old Chisholm leading a band of his household armed with 
lathi and tulwar to the rescue of his friend, precisely as his 
father, in like emergency, would have gathered and led his 
tail. 

“ The Lor’rd be thankit ! ” exclaimed the old fellow 
piously I opined . . . I heard . . . I suspeckit the warst.” 
He paused, out of breath with his haste, and wiped steaming 
brows. “ Yer ghorah-wallah here gave us thealairm. ‘ They 
are shooting my sahib,’ says he; so I juist raised ma people 
and pit ma best fit foremost ” 

“ A thousand thanks, old friend ! ’Twas like you. I 
appreciate it none the less that it happens to be needless. 

Ibn Ali has nerves ; a good horse-boy, but ” he treated 

the man to a warning look. 

“ But the shot, man ? ” 

“ Who says there was a shot ? I seem to have missed that 
part of the performance, or it missed me. A shot, was there ? 

I have forgot the shooting.” He had the old man by the arm, 
and was getting him off the premises as he spoke. There 
should be no scandal. 

“ Forgot? ” cried the other incredulously. “ Weel, ’tis nae 
affair o’ mine as to whilk fired at wha. . . . Forgot ? Ye, at 
least, cairrit nae airms. ’Tis easy to see that ye are nae 
hielan’man ; we ha’ena the trick o’ forgetting (or forgiving) 
ayont the hielan’ line. Man, Justin, ye haf a braw con- 1 
venient memory ! ” 

“ For a friend, Mr. Chisholm, and for the children of a 
friend.” 

“ I haf nane, waur’s the luck ! ” 

I was not thinking of yourself at the moment, old friend, 
but of the little laddie and lassie who sailed sixteen years ago 
with that man’s wife. He is bedridden, he is far gone in his 
drugs ; testy and fractious and suspicious, let us say. Shall 
we lose ourselves in wonder at that ? ” 

“ But the shot, man ? ” 

“Well, the shot, if there were a shot — am I the worse ? 
Suppose something went off, will it be the first time that I 
have been under fire ? Nor shall it be the last by many, as 
I hope, for the Company has not seen the back of me yet.” 

“ The villain ! ” 

“ But the children, Chisholm. Listen ! I have news for 
them, a message from their father, his first, as I think ; and 
with what sort of grace should I deliver it if I had spent my 
last hours here in laying informations, suing out process, 


OLD ENEMIES 


39 


which, as ye know very well, I have not time to prosecute ? 
Or would ye have me asking for protection, of which I stand 
in no kind of need ? No, Chisholm, it would not help me with 
the son and daughter to have blackened the name which they 
must bear.” 

“ Ye haf the tongue of the auld serpent, Justin.” 

“ And besides all this, we have shaken hands upon it ” 

“ The tefifle ye haf ? Yer han’ ! — that’s the end o’t.” 

“ I hope so. It was what I came to the Ca Sao Thome 
for ; I proposed to myself no less.” 

“ Major, on my sawl, I thenk ye are juist the maist wonder- 
ful man in India ! ” 

The Major laughed again, for he had heard the same thing 
quite recently. 





BOOK II 

THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


CHAPTER I 

MORALISINGS UPON A HAIR TRUNK AND OTHER THINGS 

E VERYTHING must begin somewhere, an elementary 
proposition to which this section of my story offers 
no exception. Let it begin, then, in the gray of a winter’s 
morning in a little low-ceiled attic in an old house in the one 
walled city which England can show. The sun is still abed, 
the crumbling red pinnacles of the cathedral over the roofs 
there are still unwarmed, but a pink cloudlet floats high in 
the ether, an angel, maybe, soaring homeward after a night’s 
watch beside some nervous child. 

The attic is poorly lit, a blind is drawn across the hasped 
lattice, the day of free ventilation is still afar. Not that 
the room is close, an open chimney attends to that, a bold 
square of brickwork wherein young swallows twitter in July, 
and which admits a narrow splash of midsummer sun half-way 
down to the hearthstone. Upon this hearthstone lies some- 
thing, which, as the light gains, we see to be a hair trunk. 
And now I am wondering how many of my readers have 
ever seen and handled such a thing. The fashion of this 
world passeth away ; expansive novelties, French and native, 
portmanteau and valise, the Gladstone and kit-bag have 
taken its place ; American notions have ousted it from 
favour, the hand-grip, the steel-bound Saratoga elevator- 
breaker and what not. Where shall the trustees of the Pitt- 
Rivers collection put finger upon an example to-day ? 

Yet I bethink me that in a certain lumber-room that I wot 
of lies the last of the breed. It is twenty-three inches in 
length, fifteen in breadth, and eleven in depth, counting-in 
the arch of the lid. Thin, well-seasoned wainscot is the 
foundation — oak was native and cheap a century since, deal 


40 


MORALISINGS UPON A HAIR TRUNK 41 

a foreign wood, dutiable and dear, not to be had for years 
together when Norway was closed to us by war (and what 
His Majesty’s dockyards did for mast-timber in those years 
Heaven only knows ; took a ship or two from the French, 

■ possibly, as wanted). Oak, then, is my trunk’s substance, 
lined with ancient news-sheets still displaying ruddily the 
Government stamp. Externally it is covered with red calf- 
skin in the hair, glued fast to the wood, and bound thereto 
with strips of leather, and nailed over all with a multiplicity 
of those dome-headed brass nails which were taxed so heavily 
because so much in demand for trunks and coffins, things 
which each member of the taxpaying class must needs use 
— this in active middle life, and the other at its end. My 
trunk is secured by hasp and plate, a wrought-iron chest- 
handle hangs at either end, and upon the bow of the lid within 
an escutcheon of nail-heads appear the initials of my grand- 
mother’s maiden name in the same medium, for this absurd 
little box, look you, is the veritable going-away trunk with 
which she left my great-grandfather’s door upon the day 
she married my grandfather. Impossible ? Sober fact, my 
dear young lady, into these exiguous limits were pressed each 
and every garment — save those which she carried upon her 
pretty back — which my charming young ancestress possessed. 
Yes, a receptacle which no self-respecting scrub-lady of to-day 
would think half big enough for her frocks, was at that time 
held sufficient for the entire trousseau of a bride of sub- 
stantial yeoman stock. 

And this trunk upon the attic hearthstone is the very 
marrow of the one which I have in my eye, save in one 
respect — a detail this, the initials upon its lid ; these, as 
one can make out in the growing light, are S. A. T., distinct 
and bright in brass that has yet to be battered with use, for 
this trunk is new and has made but one journey, to wit, from 
its maker’s workshop to this room. 

Meanwhile the light is gaining and we see more of the 
dusky little place ; the dark oak planking is waxen smooth, 
and shows its figure where a pencil strikes through a rift in 
the window-blind. A tripod washhand stand occupies a 
dim corner, its ware as diminutive as you shall still find in 
some French auberge where the needs of English travellers 
are unknown. There is no bath: our ancestors held that 
a monthly tub-night upon the kitchen bricks was all that 
nature called for. 

The recess between the chimney and the farthest corner 
of the room is curtained off, implying a bed ; a diminutive 
square of drugget adjacent suggests a prayer-rug ; there are 
garments upon a chair. The room will be occupied. Hark ! 


42 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


it is only the cathedral chimes ; wafted down the flue they 
come, the four quarters and seven booming shocks of ponderous 
bell-metal. Something stirs within the curtained recess, a 
little hand divides the hangings, a little face dazed with 
sleep is in the opening, a girl’s face, still rosily reminiscent 
of the pillow, its fine oval framed in a mass of soft brown 
hair. The forehead is broad and rather low, the brows well 
marked and arched, the nose small and straight, the little 
chin cleft like a half-ripe peach that has yet to make ac- 
quaintance with the sun ; a good chin, an excellent chin, 
there being both firmness and sweetness indicated, and 
enough of both, as the red, young mouth would also attest, 
were it not now half open in the laxity of sleep, showing two 
rows of most desirable teeth. What, then, is wrong with this 
little face, for it lacks something of perfection ? Merely a 
birth-mark, a soft grey mole upon the upper lip, round and 
softly dusky as a mouse’s ear — myosotis, they say, signifies 
Forget-me-not to a botanist, and shall to us, a parable, 
mind you — for this is less a defect than an aid to memory ; 
yes, one would hope to meet such a girl as this again, and to 
recognise her by this small, endearing personal trait. Mean- 
while the lady is wakening, she rubs her eyes, yawns (oh, 
excellent white teeth, small and regular), but she is emerging, 
and we are trespassers, a hundred and thirty years and in- 
corporeality notwithstanding, a maiden’s bedroom is sacro- 
sanct. We must begone. 

An hour later when the clock is warning for eight and the 
first promise of the day is overcast, we go exploring up a 
cobbled street, darkened by the overhang of first floors and 
the cavernous gloom of their unlit “ rows,” in search of a 
hostel yard where stand coach and horses apparelled for a 
journey. Ahead of us goes a boy with that trunk, a vacant- 
faced human immaturity, such as God made him, quite 
unremarkable, a little scrubbed boy, pink-nosed, leathern- 
aproned : he shall not detain us. He enters the yard, reaches 
the booking-office, tugs at his forelock, mentions his mistress’s 
name, lets down his burden with a grunt, rubs his shoulder 
and stands aside to watch the starting. 

A lady approaches, tripping diffidently over the stones, 
attended by an older woman, a servant of some sort by her 
dress, who, by her dress again, is plainly not to travel. Her 
mistress is well-cloaked in duffel grey against the chill of the 
morning, veiled too, and wearing a little black poke bonnet, 
neat and serviceable, but heavy and warranted to give its 
wearer a headache before night. 

The lady’s seat had been booked these nine days ; she is 
expected. “ Miss Travis, ma’am ? ” inquires the guard, 


MORALISINGS UPON A HAIR TRUNK 


43 

touching his hat-brim with an ingratiating grin. The lady- 
bows silently ; tears are trickling within that veil, she does 
not trust her voice. The man opens the coach-door and lets 
down the step, elbowing aside a stable hand who is greasing 
the under-carriage after tapping home the linch-pins. 

“ Ye’ll be pleased to face the horses, ma’am ? The ladies 
mainly does. And this’ll be your trunk ? I’ll put it in the 
boot with my own hands, ma’am ; ye need never give it 
another thought until we set ye down at Blossom’s. Yer 
travelling reticule ” — he took it from the maid — “ I’ll keep 
under my own eye ontill ye want it this night.” 

The lady bowed again and lifted her skirt to mount the 
step ; the woman behind her sniffed ; at the sound the mistress 
turned and, lifting her veil, bestowed a warm kiss upon the 
rough, red cheek which puckers with a sudden spasm. 

“ G-God-b-bless ye, ma pretty ! ub-ub ! And to lose ye 
just as ye’re perfect in your stitchery ! Heaven knows ye 
were always a wonder at yer sampler ! ub-ub ! And don’t 
ye go for to forget the simples I’ve taught ye — fried mice 
for the whooping-cough, ivy-leaves laid to the wound for 
a bad leg in the elderly, and above all, in low spots where 
there might be a touch of the ague, a live spider taken in 
gin, ub-ub ! ” 

The lady turned again and, taking the woman in her arms, 
kissed her frankly and hard upon both cheeks, now wet with 
running tears, to which her own were added, and, dropping 
her veil, sprang into the coach amid the sympathetic murmurs 
of guard and coachman. 

The scene had been watched from the window of the coffee- 
room, where another traveller was getting into his coat. The 
man was very tall, and not only tall but massive and well- 
set-up — as fine a piece of humanity as you could wish to see ; 
and though in civil dress, a soldier from his arched instep to 
the crown of his bold, well-poised head. Nor was the face 
at first sight otherwise than prepossessing : the nose, held at 
this moment rather close to the diamond pane, had just a hint 
at the forbidden upward curve, but seemed to claim it as 
its right, for was it not an Irish nose ? The brows were thick 
and ruddy, the eyes beneath were a pair of dancing, hazel, 
Donegal eyes, alive with courage, high spirits, resolution, 
and sheer devilry. But the impression produced by the 
brilliant upper half of the countenance was marred by high 
cheek-bones and a heavy and over-prominent jaw which threw 
the mouth out of shape, giving to it the habitual, saucy, 
menacing smile of the prize-fighter. Such a mouth, with its 
challenge to man and woman, has ancestry behind it and a 
history before it. There have been men of old with just such 


44 THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 

chins and mouths, great men, warriors and preachers, each 
good of his sort ; yet does such a mouth need the very grace 
of God to keep it in order. 

It would seem that the man with his nose to the pane had 
seen enough, for he straightened his back with a low laugh, 
clapping a black tricorne over a crop of dark chestnut hair 
that curled strongly at the temples and was elsewhere drawn 
back to form the queue. 

“ Faith, and I’m in luck’s way again ! ” He struck his 
gloved hands together lightly. “ The leedy is a gyurrl, and 
a young gyurrl at that, and has a heart, too, as I’m a gintle- 
man. How will I be taking her ? ” (In a minute — ‘ ‘ Get out wid 
ye, and close that door behint ye ! ”) This to a waiter hovering, 
expectant of a vail which he was destined not to touch. He 
had proffered his help to the gentleman with his coat, but the 
gentleman would none of his assistance ; as a last resource 
he apprised him that the coach was waiting. How the hint was 
received we have seen. Major Cornelius Boyle, late of the 
41st, but at present unattached, and travelling under the 
name of Tighe, was not the man to accept a hint or to hurry 
himself for the convenience of others. The coach was waiting ? 
Let it wait. 

“ ’Tis the woundud hayro that’ll be quickust to flutter the 
young female heart ; and here he stands,” said he ; and whilst 
speaking unwound a black silk wrapper from his neck and 
improvised a sling for his right arm, winding hand and wrist 
in a coloured bandanna for picturesqueness — the man loved 
a touch of colour — and thus adorned presented himself at the 
door of the waiting coach hat in hand. 

“ Me mails are in the boot, gyard ? I thank ye. Ah, and 
what do I see ? Madam, I hope I do not intrude. Have I 
your permission to share the inside ? Tighe, is my name, 
Major Tighe, madam, at your servus. I thank ye a thousand 
times ; ’tis a liberty I am taking, of which I am sinsible. 
Had I but known in time I swear I’d not have encroached 
upon your privacy. I would sooner have postud, and would 
now, had not your greecious inclination made it evidunt that 
the prisince of a simple soldier would not be offensuv to ye.” 

Whilst apologising he was getting in, and was now dis- 
burdening himself of his lighter belongings assisted by the lady, 
in pity for his supposed disablement. He had seated himself 
beside her in the unavoidable proximity entailed by the 
straitness of the vehicle and the exigencies of his immense 
person. 

Coachman and guard had watched the escalade with know- 
ing winks : both knew something of the man, and were aware 
that he had bespoken the back seat which he was now occupy- 


MORALISINGS UPON A HAIR TRUNK 45 

ing a week since, and after inquiries as to the status of his lady 
fellow-traveller. 

Before the coach had cleared the arched entry ’twas noticed 
that the cavalier was attempting to engage the lady in con- 
versation. Her veil was down. 

The woman-servanc watched the stage lurch out into the 
street, jolt over the ill-set cobbles, shave the bourne-stone at 
the corner, and pass out of sight. “ Ma precious,” she mur- 
mured, “ Ma poor precious ! ” and wept afresh ; then, finding 
the boy at her elbow, regarding her with one of boyhood’s 
many exasperating forms of countenance, she took the urchin 
a small cuff o’ the lug, bade him home to his knife-board, 
and followed his lingering footsteps. 

The coach and its burden were gone, with crack of whip and 
blast of horn, as befitted King George’s mails, but with poor 
results in the matter of progress. The roads of the eighteenth 
century were inconceivably ill-planned, ill-made, and neglected ; 
travelling was tedious, comfortless, and dangerous. Overturns 
were of frequent occurrence, breakdowns still commoner. 
The Chester-to-London mail will have its minor adventure of 
the sort, and not a dozen hours after starting. 


CHAPTER II 


THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 

The axle was sprung, a matter beyond the skill of the village 
wheelwright ; a man should be fetched from Holtwich. 
The passengers must put up with the delay ; a common 
accident of the road ; it meant a night’s lodging. 

Their case might easily have been worse, the Griffin at 
Malby Cross was no mere change-house, but an inn of decayed 
respectability, a hostel that had come down in the world ; 
like Mrs. Quickly, it had had its losses, but retained its self- 
respect. 

Its landlady arose to the occasion ; the resources available 
for unexpected guests were not too abundant, for the hamlet 
was small, and had it been thrice as large would have had no 
shop at that day. Flesh meat at such an hour was out of the 
question ; the men were but just back from the field. Only in 
scriptural lands does one kill at a moment’s notice ; but 
poultry and eggs were to be had, and flitches hung plainly in 
view. 

The young lady was making a poor supper ; unused to 
travelling, the rough roads and the rolling of the stage had 
come near to turning her stomach ; her colour had suffered ; 
she drooped wearily, a pathetic little figure that appealed to 
all that was motherly in her hostess, a woman of forty-five, 
in widow’s cap and rusty weeds, apple-cheeked, executive, 
who knew her world, ready with tongue and hand, strong as 
a man, a corpulent body upon active legs. 

“ Pick a little more, my pretty ; ah, that’s right, we’re the 
better for’t already. Now, sit ye back and rest yerself ; ’ tis 
too soon for bed, or I’d hap ye up with my own hands, I 
would. The road takes it sorely out o’ them as is fresh to’t. 
Bed ? Yes, ye shall share mine, my dear,” with a defiant 
smile over the heads of the men, “ I’se warrant we’ll have a 
good night on’t. I’d bid ye into my private parlour this 
minute, but I’ve quality there as is no credit to itself or the 
Griffin, but such as a lone woman in the victualling must 


THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 


47 

stomach at times.” She tossed back her cap-strings with an air 
of disdain, “ The young squire, well into his second bottle ; 
he with his head not half made.” 

Major Tighe had eaten heartily and desired a pipe, which 
was impossible in the presence of the lady, yet he could 
hardly find it in him to leave her to the society of the Third 
Passenger, a younger man than himself, small and awkward, 
for whom, despite the fellow’s persevering silence, he had 
conceived an active dislike. The dashing Irishman had 
proposed to himself some diversion upon his journey ; four or 
five days of enforced companionship with a girl, young, pretty, 
and unchaperoned, suggested opportunities. The scheme 
had miscarried almost at the outset. At the second change- 
house south a third passenger had been awaiting the mail, 
or rather had run up and taken a seat at the instant of starting. 
Never was man less welcome ; the newcomer’s taciturn 
presence had contributed nothing to the life of the day, but 
had chilled the gallantries which the Irishman had relied 
upon to while away the tedium of the journey ; for the Major 
was the man to improve his opportunities with the sex with 
encouragement or with none, and could hardly be thrown 
into the company of a woman of any age for ten minutes 
without initiating some amorous advance. 

He held this intruder responsible for spoiling his day. Dis- 
like sharpens suspicion. Since the Major’s tongue had been 
bound over to good behaviour his eyes had gone a-roving, 
and had brought him news that the Third Passenger’s clothes 
had been built for a bigger man : the collar of the riding-coat 
bulged at the nape, its shoulders were over-square, its girth 
redundant. Even the montier-cap was too roomy for the head 
it covered ; boots, breeches, and all, shared this fault of over- 
amplitude. “ Have ye risen in the dark, sirrah, and ex- 
changed clothes with yer elder brother ? ” had trembled upon 
the tip of a tongue unused to sparing the feelings of men ; 
but the presence of the lady had restrained the jeer. 

“ Ecod ! ’tis a poor creature, and cannot meet a man’s eye 
at all ; and fwhat, in the divil’s name, is this figger-o’-spache 
for a man (wan that cannot for the life of him raise a decent 
shute of duds) doing in the inside of a stage ? Him that 
should be upon the tailboard of a waggon, if indade he was 
not stipping it on his fit ? ” Thus he ruminated. “ Come, 
sir,” he said aloud, arising with exuberant courtesy when the 
hostess paused with her eye upon him (black it was, and as 
bold as his own), “ ’tis plain the leedy would prefer a little 
privacy ; you and mysilf will be taking our tobacco ilswhere.” 

“ Indeed, yes ; and I am obliged to you, sir, for the sugges- 
tion,” assented the anxious-faced passenger, with readier 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


48 

speech than he had used all day. The door closed behind him. 
The Irishman, turning to follow, saw through the leaded 
panes a horseman dismounting in the inn-yard, and noted 
carelessly, and almost unconsciously, with that wary, soldierly 
eye of his, with what alacrity the ostler held his stirrup, and 
some touch of breeding in the carriage of the stranger ; the 
next moment he had dismissed the incident from his mind 
and was in the bar parlour, his hostess bobbing before him 
with choice of long-stemmed clays whilst he plied her with 
conventional freedoms, jocosely parrying the maudlin rebukes 
of the young squireen. ’Twas no place for tobacco, nor was 
the bar, where three yokels discussed the points of a horse 
over their beer. He essayed the garden. 

This was the inn’s best point. The house, once of manorial 
rank, and still showing something of carven barge-boards to 
the village street, kept the best of its mullioned windows 
and pargeting for its garden-front. Here a flagged walk 
between borders of box led up to a bowling-green of the 
best, counter-sunk to restrain overcasts, its encircling ramp 
crested by such a yew hedge as only a hundred years of tendence 
will give ; four flat green walls, their level summits crenellated 
at intervals by elephants, peacocks, mounted knights, and 
foresters with stiffly uplifted clubs. 

“ Some of Dutch William’s work — the curse o’ Limerick 
upon him ! ” muttered the explorer with questing eye on the 
lookout for shelter, for an occasional drop was falling. “ Sure, 
there’ll be a summer-house handy. Where ilse ’ll they keep 
their liquor cool ? ” He was thinking of the players who used 
the green on summer evenings, and paced the length of the 
alley to make good his prognosis. But shelter was none. 
He had reached the end, where two of the retaining walls of 
yew abutted upon an angle-bastion of the same, a huge bee- 
hive of a bush, surmounted by a lion, and was about to retrace 
his steps when his eye caught a narrow, diagonal exit, a sally- 
port piercing the enclosing hedge. He peeped ; the beehive 
bastion was hollow ; entrance was gained from behind, by a 
squint, as the church-builders of the past would have called 
it. ’Twas a topiarist’s masterpiece, a triumph of dexterous 
cutting. Within this dim, green cell was a stone table, an 
oaken bench curved around it horseshoe-wise, lit by a couple 
of arrow-loops, as we name them when wrought in the stone 
curtain of some fortress of the middle age ; scarcely visible 
slits upon the smooth outer face, but splayed within, and 
commanding this the bowling-green, that the outer side of 
its boundary hedge, a private garden given over to kitchen 
stuff, where the cabbage grew strong beneath aged pear- 
trees. 


49 


THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 

The explorer took his bearings, dusting the seat with a 
handkerchief which he unwound from his wrist ; it had 
served its purpose, he would relax in private. “ A quare, 
ould place and handy for hide-and-seek and sportings wid 
Amaryllus in the shade. ’Twill stand a spot of rain, too.’* 
The pipe drew, its lacquered mouth-piece went kindly with 
his tongue, the tobacco, being his own, was to his mind. 
The Major settled himself in his seat and fell a-thinking. 

“ A foine young gyurrl, and ’tis my own luck again and 
a thousand pities that she is as poor as mesilf, and no use to 
me at all. ’Strewth, I could have done with the creature 
oulder and uglier if she were heavy in the stocking. Ah me, 
a light fut is for a subaltern, but the heavy garter is the magnet 
for a man of forty. And me as near broke as iver I knew 
mesilf ! Con Boyle, ye omadaun, yer hot blood ’ll be the 
spoilin’ of ye yit ! But that’s moralisin’, which same I’ve 
sworn off ! 

“To this gyurrl again — the creature as she stands ; now, 
at her worst, isn’t she just a woman ? No more, maybe ; 
but, faith, no less. And a woman and a fight are always 
worth the winning. 

“ ’Pon me heart and loife, I believe I’m in for ut. She has 
looked at me — once. Not a challenge in form, but ’twill 
pass. There was fear and confusion in the eye of her ; she 
gives me the merely civil yes and no ; she declines to converse. 
What will I make of that now ? Begad ! ’tis a challenge ! 
I pick up yer little glove, me leedy ; ye shall look me full in 
the face wid admiration before we part ; if, indeed, we do 
part ! Ah, me heart, sorra an ‘ if ’ there is in ut, for short 
of three hond’rd a year (of which there’s no sign), fwhat would 
Cornelius Boyle be doin’ for long wid a slip of a colleen ? 
Aye, though she were as sweet as sin itself ? So, ’tis fixed, I 
open me trinches ; but before I unmask me batteries there’s 
this pestilent Third Inside to see the back of. How will I 
manage ut ? * Sir, two is company,’ I’ll be sayin’ ; ‘ maybe 

ye know the rest of the adage,’ and from that to pulling the 
baste’s nose and offerin’ me cyard is but a stip. So that’s 
settled, praise the saints ! ’* 

The man’s resolve was taken ; he was done with thinking, 
an exercise to which he was but little given. Truth to tell, 
Major Cornelius Boyle was not one whose memory hummed 
to him sweet and gentle airs. Love movements were there, 
but the man’s amorous passages had hitherto ended unhappily ; 
scene after scene of his life’s comedy had failed in holding the 
house ; again and yet again the curtain had been rung down 
amid hissing. Hence, this fellow, who feared little else, shunned 
his own company and never looked behind. Such livers Jin 

4 


50 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


the present live briefly and hard, storming across their stage, 
filling it with the sounds of stolen kisses, stamping, and the 
rattle of blows. Walk wide of such all ye who would love 
wisely and live long. 

The Major had come to the end of his reflections and cast 
about for his next sensation. He had finished his pipe and 
turned the bowl under to knock out the dottle against the 
oaken seat, when a short, low sound in his neighbourhood 
arrested his hand. It was one of those small human noises 
which proceed from the region at the back of the face, and 
may mean much or little. In the present case the sound 
implied low spirits, or respite from recent anxiety, the listener 
knew not which ; but he did know that the grunt was nature’s 
effort to lift a load off a burdened heart. Boyle was un- 
hampered by scruples : here was pastime ready to his hand. 
Quick as a birds’-nesting schoolboy who hears a thrush go 
off, he silently turned upon his bench and set eye to the nearest 
embrasure. Advancing over the sodden turf, smoking as he 
walked, came the Third Inside, his head bent in thought. 
He paced slowly, nodding in time to his steps as does a pigeon, 
and, pigeon -like, turning in his toes and cooing dolefully 
between his whiffs. The man’s clean-shaven mouth drooped 
at the corners, giving an elderly cast to a long-nosed face that 
had been but four-and-twenty years in the making. 

The eavesdropper took his breath softly, watching the other 
with impatient contempt. “ A mighty poor actor, bedad ! 
that cannot even soliloquise. I’ll be booing him off the boards 
in a minute onless he can disburden his sowl better than this. 
Fwhat ails the cripple that he must come harassing the heart 
of a gintleman over his pipe and make no handsomer fist of 
his complaint than. . . . ’Pon me salvation, I’m inclined 
to the belief that he’s wanted by some one.” 

To relieve the tension of his posture, Boyle straightened his 
back, and, as he did so, saw for a moment through the other 
slit the perspective of the rear of the hedge. More sport ! 
There, within less than three yards of the Third Inside was a 
man dogging his steps, parting with wary fingers the dense foli- 
age between them, peeping and listening. This furtive watcher 
was dressed for riding ; he wore a long drab coat of light cloth, 
with shoulder-cape of the same ; his hat was a little tricorne 
with narrow brim, a size or so too big for his head, one that 
could be pulled down over the eyes at need, in the stress of 
a hard gallop ; it looked like a hunting-hat and one that had 
seen some wear. The face beneath it was ruddy with sun and 
wind, an alert, vivacious face, delicately featured, alive with 
pleasurable animation ; the eyes and the forehead were good ; 
the straight, thin-nostrilled nose was good ; the whole set anc] 


THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 


5i 


make of the countenance spoke of descent, breeding, and 
character. Such a fellow might play the fool, aye, or the 
knave, if overdriven by fate, but could not, for the life of him, 
be a dolt or a nincompoop. A scholar he might be, or a soldier, 
or both ; but whether with quill or steel, he would make his 
mark. Upon the whole, you would have preferred to have 
sided with rather than opposed him, for this youngster had the 
air of one who would stick to his friend and stand up to his 
enemy. 

Boyle from his coign of vantage grasped the situation upon 
the instant. “ ‘ Wantud,’ did I say ? And this, sure, will be 
the wan that wants him. Not but what this peeping and spying 
is monstrous ungenteel, not the thing to be after at all, at all. 

I must be seeing more of ut. And, who now ? Why, 

’tis the man that was dismounting in the inn-yard when I was 
in the bar. And what has he to say to my man, and what will 
be the maning of that ? ” for the eavesdropper had halted among 
the cabbages, and, standing stork-like upon each foot in turn, 
had drawn off his jack-boots, and tucking one under either 
arm, was tripping upon his stocking feet lightly as a cat in the 
direction of the arbour. Next instant Boyle had lost him, then 
his passing figure darkened the entrance, the boots fell clattering; 
with a shout of laughter he had leapt through the squint in the 
hedge and had the amazed Third Inside in his embrace, whose 
grunt, half-uttered, changed in the utterance to the shrill squeal 
of a rabbit when the mouse-hunt has him below the ear. 

“ A poltroon after all, and wid a bad conscience,” muttered 
the watcher, and strained eye and ear for the sequel. 

“ Tavy, by all that’s holy ! Tavy Baskett — Octavius 
Baskett, Bachelor of Arts of the University of Oxford, deacon 
in holy orders (or has it run to a priest’s since last we met ?). 
Another, yes, and yet another ! ” 

The Third Inside, caught thus at a disadvantage and dipt 
in the closest of embraces, gasped, lost his pipe, lost montier- 
cap and wig (not even his hair was his own), and struggled 
bleating in the arms of his captor. 

“ Yah, yah, release me, sir ! What does this mean ? No 
liberties now. Don’t know ye, I say, don’t know ye ? ’Nough 
and too much of this foolery ! ” 

But the taller and lither man had not done with him. 

“Not know your old friend, Tavy? For shame, man! 
Think again. Think of Shrewsbury School ; think of the 
House ; think of the servitors’ table in Hall. Would it deny 
itself to its boyhood’s crony ? For shame, Tavy. I swear ye 
have gone near to break my heart.” 

He flung his man from him and stood back, having got the 
information he wanted : whilst straining his old comrade to 


5 2 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


il A&r 


his bosom with his right hand he had felt him from shoulder 
to waist with light, rapid touches of his left, as Boyle did not 
fail to observe. 

But the Reverend Octavius Baskett was unaware of this, 
and of much else which it behoved him to know. He reddened 
and stuttered with anger ; his alarm, by virtue of the law 
governing the transformation of energy, had been transmuted 
to temper. “ S-sir ! — Gobblessmysoul ! — wh-hat d'ye mean ? — 
are ye in liquor ? Admit as much and I may pardon ye. 
Monstrous ! to be accosted, embraced in this vulgar, offensive 
manner, and by a person whom I have not the slightest recol- 
lection of. O, Lord ! Dray, don't — put it up, I say, it might 
go off ! ” He dropped upon his knees covered by a pistol. 

“ - Dray ,’ did ye say, Tavy ? ” replied the other softly ; “ ’tis 
your first true word, but if repeated will be apt to be your last. 
I would have ye forget my christened name and any other that 
that treacherous memory of yours may attach to me. What 
do I want with ye ? Wait a bit ; ye shall learn soon enough, 
but meanwhile, keep just so. Pontius Pilate ! what a coward 
it is, and ever was ! How oft have I, as a lower boy, seen ye 
kneel so, all along, yes, te ululante virgato, yelping until the roof 
of the big school-room rang whilst old Atcherley laid on. ’Twas 
a gracious spectacle for us fags, Tavy, to whom ye were a terror ; 
spiteful to the weak, a craven to fellows of your size ; as ye are 
still, I perceive. Don’t wriggle so ; there’s no old Atcherley 
behind ye, and I have a difficulty in keeping ye covered (he was 
less thoughtful, as I seem to remember; Jacobus plagosus l 
How we loved him ! ”) 

“W-what d’ye want?” whined the other; but his master 
was not to be hurried. 

“ This sin of ingratitude grows upon ye, Tavy ; ’tis one which 


the ancient Persians punished with impalement ; which reminds 


me that ye have been playing for a stake, and a big one, though 
not the sort that Xenophon treats of. I wrote your verses 
and ye paid me with kicks.” 

“Not at Christ Church; we were the best of friends up at 
Oxford,” pleaded the cleric. 

“ Acquaintance merely, Tavy, for ye were a third year’s 
man when I came up, and were too deep in your divinity for 
me. But, if what I hear of ye is true, there has been some 
spiritual declension since ye assumed your holy office ; eh, 
Tavy ? Yet your lines have fallen in pleasant places : domestic 
chaplain to a viscount, preferment in view, a place of a thou- 
sand, merely a question of toadying and patience ; and ye were 
great at both. But what do we find, my Tavy ? Debts, 
borrowings from the butler, yes, and from the housekeeper and 


maids.’ 


THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 


53 


“ Never ! I swear ’tis false as perdition ! ” 

££ Swear not at all, Tavy, or at least save your oath until one 
perjury will cover the lot, for I’ve more in hand. What of 
those gems ? ” 

” Gems ? ” echoed the kneeling man in a quavering voice. 

“ Yes, the gems, Oh, mine ancient comrade, the camei, 
the antiques, commensale meo atque sodale ! ” 

“ I — I know nothing about the things. It must have been 
somebody else. Why ask me ? What is it to you ? We were 
all searched, every one of us, even I myself, an indignity they 
should have spared my cloth, but I thought it right to offer to 
be subjected to it as an example to the men and maids, you 
know. O, do put that thing away ! ” 

“ All in good time, Tavy ; but first tell me how comes it that 
you who were so forward, as you tell me, in offering your person 
and trunk to the constables, failed to regain the confidence of 
his lordship, and have had to leave Duddingstone ? ” 

££ I went from choice, I tell ye. Can’t ye understand there 
might be unpleasantness with the household after such a 
mysterious affair ? ” 

££ Certainly ; but as I hear, ’twas not the servants’ hall alone 
that ye failed to convince. Why are ye not at Durham ? ” 

“ Dur-ham?” faltered the kneeling man, blinking painfully 
into that black barrel. 

££ Don’t echo, Tavy, ‘tis not done in polite society : I said 
Durham. When ye took your leave of his lordship ye gave 
him to understand that ye had accepted a post in the cathedral 
school. His lordship is not exactly a fool, and procured a 
warrant for your arrest and search as ye passed through York.” 
££ Wh-a-at ? Oh ! ” 

££ Luckily for yourself, ye changed your route. Ye went 
neither to York nor Durham, but doubled south under a new 
name, and in layman’s togs ; as I expected ye would, Tavy. 
London, as I take it, seemed a surer market for your swag. 
Don’t begin protesting : I have news for ye. His lordship’s 
agent has tracked ye to Chester : he has men on this road. There 
is a Staffordshire warrant out for ye, which will be executed 
to-morrow so soon as ye pass the county stone. But cheer 
up, I’m your friend. Knowing all this, I say, I’ve rid north 
to head ye off (but for that sprung axle I doubt I should have 
been too late). Providence has work in store for ye yet, ‘ Ye 
fearful saints, fresh courage take ! ’ The Viscount wants his 
intagli , not your neck in a noose ; they will search ye, and if 
the things are found upon ye, ye will hang ; if they are not, 
the men have orders to turn ye loose again.” 

“ Is — that so ? ” burst from the lips of the wretch with a 
groan. 


54 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


“ Did ye ever know me tell a lie, Tavy ? No, nor has any 
other man. Hence I am well served. Come and go as I will, 
not a wench nor ostler blabs. Why ? I pay promptly and 
pay well ; the King, God bless him ! — slowly or not at all. 
And now hand over that belt — that belt, I say — the thing with 
the stones in it. What else ? Quick with those vest-buttons, 
man; don’t fumble so. This pistol of mine is a hair trigger and 
grows vastly heavy upon my finger with waiting. . . . Ah, that 
is better. Ye may rise.” 

Boyle saw a wash-leather belt change hands, and the pistol 
lowered, the master-thief pouching the booty with the non- 
chalant ease of a man used to the handling of valuables. The 
watcher moistened a dry lip. He was in fortune’s lap at last : 
this must be the veritable Ned Repton, otherwise “ The Scho- 
lar,” a meteoric villain, the newest and most dreaded of the 
gentlemen of the road, and the only one of them who deserved 
the name ; a felon, but a man of parts, whose superior education 
gave him an advantage over the plebeians of his profession, 
and whose command of information, no less than his astonish- 
ing fertility in disguise, had for months kept him out of the 
hangman’s hands whilst placing in his own some of the best- 
filled purses of the travelling public along the Great North road. 

Boyle’s lips were moving noiselessly in self-communion. 

“ ’Tis no mere pockut off the red, this, but a break. Will 
I be shooting now, or will I hold me fire and hear more ? Holy 
Biddy, but ’tis a strong hand I’m dealt. There’s lashins of 
money in ut and cannons all round the table. There’s blood- 
money — when I can touch ut, for the rogue spakes truth, the 
King is dilatory in these little matters. But apart from the 
dirty guineas, there’s the jools. I will be handing thim back to 
me Lord Duddingstone (whoever he may be, for I niver heard 
of him before this day). Put him at the worst : say the man 
is a pock-pudding Protestant Saxon, he can do no less than 
make me a handsome prisint and place his int’rust at me dis- 
posal. But there again, what are his politics ? A King’s 
Friend would be the making of me, but the recommindation of 
a peer that had votud cross would do me no good at the Horse 
Gyards at all, at all. . . . What will I do ? ‘To shoot or not to 
shoot, that is the question,’ as Othello says in the play ; ’tis 
a poor light and a risk, for a ball is asily deflectud by any One of 
these twigs. Tear-an-ouns, I’m for thrying ut ! Per-dition ! ” 

The man travelled armed, as did most at that time ; his 
hand went to his pocket, paused and explored . His face fell in 
the darkness, for the pocket was empty, nor did a deep, slow 
curse ease his heart, for the fault was his own. The arms which 
he had been carrying all day were now, at moment of need, in 
the greatcoat lying across the bed in his chamber. 


THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 55 

Next moment he was smiling again the self-confident smile 
of a bold, strong man. " ’Tis a waker hand than I had thought ; 
but stap me vitals if I don’t play out the deal.” 

He resettled himself to listen. There might be information 
worth the gaining. The men were talking again ; the ex-chap- 
lain had risen to his feet, sniffing and grumbling his way back to 
composure ; his former victim, now his master, having gained 
his point and established his position, was for smoothing the 
ruffled feathers of a subordinate whom he intended to employ. 

“ Where did I learn of your — what shall we say ? — exploit ? 
—or fall from grace ? From the bills, Tavy. I have one about 
me ; see. Never tell me this is news to ye ! Here ye are : 

‘ Stolen. The contents of a cabinet : sixty-one antique gems ,’ 
follows the descriptions, well and minutely drawn up, by his 
lordship’s own hand, as I guess. And, pray, my sapient friend, 
who is going to take these off your hands in the face of this ? ” 

“ As precious stones, I conceive ” 

“ As precious stones they are scarcely worth carriage to 
London. Carnelian, agate, jasper, peridots, and Rhine-stones, 
all rubbish considered as material. Man, what wast learning 
up at Oxford ? ’Tis the workmanship ” 

“ Oh, don’t tell me ! Of course I know all that. Wasn’t I 
curator of the beastly things for two years ? But I tell ye 
they have a value, and a very great value too ; and to be robbed 
of them like this, and by an old friend ” — he reddened and 
choked. 

ft Softly, Tavy ! We were never friends until now. I always 
swore I’d be even with ye for yur barbarities to me ; and now, 
as I live, I’m returning ye good for evil. But for me ye would 
have walked blindfold into the hangman’s hands to-morrow, or 
say, by God’s grace, ye had slipped past the traps and reached 
London (London was your mark — he thought to pass the swag 
in London, the ninny !) — Why, man alive, the first antiquary 
to whom ye showed the things would have holloaed for a con- 
stable and lodged ye in the lock-up. I swear I have saved your 
life and shall keep the stuff as my honorarium.” 

“ You thief ! ” snarled the cleric venomously. 

“ Get it out and ha’ done with it, Tavy,” replied the other 
with careless tolerance. “ If I do well with the things (and I 
think to do well with them) I’ll spare ye something, though I 
owe ye not a stiver — the boot is on t’other leg. I am puzzling 
my head where to place them. The market is most peculiar 
and limited . J ewels can be reset, recut ; they are money all the 
world over, but these ! Why, there may be twenty men in 
England, all told, who collect, and as many more who under- 
stand them, and abroad there is a Grand Duke or two, a dozen 
of cardinals and — the Jews, who would cozen ye out of the lot 


56 THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 

for a couple of guineas or decline to touch em, and would do 
wisely, for these can never come into the market as they stand ; 
they must home to mother earth again, Tavy, for their charac- 
ter’s sake, and trickle back from the Campagna and Sicily, 
one at a time, years hence, when the cry has died down and 
old Duddingstone is quiet in his coffin. 

££ No ; there is only one buyer at the moment, and that is 
old Duddingstone himself. And I need hardly say that ye 
can’t approach him personally. I can ; and, as I have a bone 
to pick with him and his, I shall take over the business with the 
more zest. . . . But all that may take months, and one must 
live in the meantime.” The voice dropped ; the listener strained 
eye and ear in vain. 

Meanwhile the darkening, overcast sky, from which drops 
had been falling furtive and single as spies, kindled to a smoky 
wrath of sunset. The rough underside of the dun roof of cloud 
caught fire from a blazing west ; each red tile and chimney- 
stack glowed its minute, then dulled and darkened, and the 
show was over, wasted upon the three, mere men, untouched 
by the mute message from the heaven above them that found 
no answer within. The rain began again in earnest. 

££ I am getting wet,” complained the ex-chaplain, an indoors 
man, with a peevish shrug. 

■ ‘ ’Tis nothing ; and I’ve a thing or two to settle with ye that 
I had rather not broach within four walls. . . . Hup ! ” the man 
was getting into his boots again. ■■ Well, if ye must be sitting, 
there’s a covered seat within arm’s-length of us.” 

Boyle was a man of action. To be caught in the act of 
espial by a ready rogue such as this, and shot like a polecat 
in a blind culvert, was not in his scheme of things. With 
surprising agility for such a bulky person, he silently whipped 
through the narrow opening and around the bush and into the 
outer angle formed by its junction with the hedge. Farther 
he durst not go in the failing light, lest the clatter of wet cab- 
bage leaves or the snapping of some low-hung pear-tree bough 
should give notice of his passage. Thus far his movements 
had been screened from the confederates by the sounds of their 
own footsteps, and the patter of rain upon the garden leaves, 
but by now they had seated themselves within the shelter 
which he had left, and he dared not stir hand nor foot. Would 
the reek of the pipe which he held in his hand betray him ? 
He lowered it to the wet earth and extinguished it with extreme 
precaution. The Major had seen some pretty work with the 
outposts in wooded country overseas before getting into the 
trouble which had compelled him to exchange and come home : 
he was versed in night adventure and enjoyed taking his 
chances. 


THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 



57 


il Come, this is more to your mind, Tavy ; ye would never 
have found such a hidey-hole by the light of nature. Trust 
me, I know the winding walks and secret arbours of this and 
some other inn gardens. Now we can talk. Who was your 
party to-day ? A man and a young miss, my stableman said. 
Ye may pass the girl, we — I never meddle with a woman. 
What like was the other ? ” 

But the cleric had turned sulky. “ Ye have used me ill, 

k roughly, brutally ; I simply don’t know ye. Ye were the meek- 
est little squit at Shrewsbury, and up at Oxford never opened 
your mouth.” 

“ And was kicked accordingly,” interposed the other with 
an accent sharpened by bitter recollections. “ But it didn’t 
pay, Tavy ; there was one kick too many, and — but I need not 
trouble ye with my story. There came a day when I turned 
upon ’em, as even a worm will, they say, but took nothing by 
my motion.” 

“ They discommoned you ? the brutes ! ” 

“ They sent me down, man. Aye, in my last year, too, just 
before I was to have taken my degree. That opened my eyes ; 
I saw that the House was no place for a poor man with scruples. 
I would sink one defect whilst rectifying the other. There is 
money in this life, and some fun in it. I had a dozen of old 
scores to clear, and am working through ’em. You were on 
my list. These Duddingstones come next ; if they fare no 
worse than yourself, Tavy, they’ll have little to make mouths 
over. Hurt your feelings, have I ? Think no more on’t : 
’twas necessary. If two are to ride one horse one must needs 
sit in front : I take the saddle, you the crupper, and as that is 
agreed we can come to business.” 

“ Ye frightened me abominably. I thought I must have 
died ! ” 

“ Ye may yet, Tavy, unless ye attend to me. We cannot be 
seen in company, but must meet in London. Ye know 
London ? ” 

The weaker man was already half subdued to the will of his 
masterful ally. His own plan had made shipwreck ; he was 
only too pleased to be invited to join in another which kept him 
in some degree in touch with plunder by which he still hoped 
to benefit. Yet he gave his address grudgingly. 

“ ’Tis a house of call I used when a youngster. A widow, 
Vince by name, a most respectable person, in Camomile Street, 
who lets lodgings ; ye can find me there or leave a letter.” 

“ I have that in mind,” said Repton, after the pause for 
mental registry of a man accustomed to use his memory 
rather than tablets. “ And now, back to this fellow-traveller 
of yours.” 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


58 


“ A hulking Irishman, as big as the pair of us ; a pestilent 
person, who is by way of paying his addresses to the lady.” 

“ An Irishman ? Vastly tall and personable ? Not red- 
haired by any chance, and with a snub nose ? ” 

“You have him, and with his arm in a sling — his right.” 

“That last fixes him. ’Tis Boyle, late major of the 41st, 
who was cashiered last week for killing his man in a duel at 
Chester. Don’t say ye have not heard of it. Ye have been 
keeping out of the way of late though, which is a mistake. Ye 
should make it your business to know what goes on, as I do. 
This affair made more noise than common. There were no 
seconds, ye see, so the survivor stood his trial, but the jury 
disagreed. ’Twas a stroke of luck for him, but he has had to 
send in his papers. I take it he is for London to get himself 
reinstated. He may succeed if he has influence. The man 
is a brute by all accounts; but such are wanted just now in 
the colonies.” 

“ He told the lady that he was but just home from the 
colonies, and had taken his wound there.” 

“ Flam, Tavy : he took his wound where the other man 
took his death, on the Roodee, at seven o’clock of a Sunday 
morning. I doubt the fellow’s fob is none too well lined, but 
little fishes are sweet. I take him on to-morrow.” 

“ Are ye mad ? Don’t think of it. He is as fierce as a bull, 
and as strong ! ” 

“ I was not proposing to wrestle with him,” replied Repton, 
and drummed thoughtfully with his knuckles upon the table 
in the darkness, whilst the eavesdropper’s mouth widened 
with a ferocious grin, and his eyes sparkled and danced in 
his head. Shoot ? Not if he had both pistols about him, or 
in the last resort only. ’Twas Indian fighting and a delicate 
business at that, ambushing an ambush. Half a dozen 
schemes competed for precedence in his brain : the stolen 
cameos, the King’s blood-money (he put that by), the rogue’s 
ransom as proposed by himself, or his help in carrying off 
this girl with the parson’s aid (a parson seemed a godsend at 
such a juncture). But there was more to hear — hush ! the 
fellow was speaking again. 

“ I must have you in it, Tavy.” 

“ Me ? — N-not me ! — I couldn’t. Consider my cloth ; be- 
sides, I have no arms.” 

“ Y’ave a pair, which is all I need, and your role shall be 
to play the shrinking, whimpering, clinging poltroon : it 
fits ye like your skin ! Listen, I say. Three miles to the 
south of this is Sandylane Hill, where the driver and guard 
will get down to walk, and will bid you men to do the same 
for the sake of the beasts. Now, ye must contrive that the 


THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 


59 

Irishman shall fall behind a little, and when that happens be 
you at his left elbow ” 

■ “ I daren’t ! I can’t ! I won’t ! ” 

“ Ye can, and ye will. Listen, I say ! ” with sudden in- 
tensity. “ At the turn of the road, half way to the top, stands 
a great holly-bush ; so soon as the stage is well forward and 
you are near, I step out from behind that. The instant ye 
see me, clutch the man’s left arm with both your hands and 
fall upon your knees, anchoring him, as one may say. O, 
squeak, if ye think proper, but under your breath, for I must 
be speaking. I shall empty your pockets for form’s sake ; 
later we meet as agreed.” 

“ I tell ye ’tis not in my line. Don’t ask it,” pleaded the 
weakling. 

“ Lord, what a pitiful nincompoop it is ! but there must 
be a use for such creatures in the scheme of nature. Hark ye, 
my man, once more, and for the last time, ye are in for this and 
shall go through with it or hang.” 

The listener felt the darkness tremble with the deep shudder- 
ing gasp which followed these words. 

“ Fail me in any one single particular, Tavy, and ye are a 
lost soul. The guard of this coach, a friend of mine in a 
quiet way, a simple, obliging fellow, will have the office, and 
will stick to ye, and will make ye over to the Staffordshire 
constables at the county stone.” 

“ O Christ, what a man ! ” wailed the miserable cleric. 
"Ye are playing fast and loose with me. ’Tis but a minute since 

ye said the men would not molest me unless they found ” 

" But, they shall find enough to convict ye unless ye do as 
I bid ye. Hold your noise and listen ” — he was shaking 
the man by the shoulder. " I will arrange that the searchers 
shall have something incriminating to find upon ye. One of 
those catchpoles is my most particular friend. How else, 
think you, did I learn about the warrant and where they will 
execute it ? In the news-sheet ? As you may see, I am 
venturing something myself ; I act ugly-man to your Irish- 
man ; but I must have a forestall, and ye are the only shy 
covey available. (We must use our tongues to the ritual of 
this new profession of ours, Tavy.) Come, think of Lancaster 
Castle ! Hearten yourself up with thoughts of a gibbet on 
Duddingstone Moor, with a cart and a rope and a brother of 
your cloth to see ye through with it ! ” 

" For pity’s sake, don’t ! ” 

“ I found but little pity at your hands in the old days,. 
Tavy. But to our several plans, yours and mine. If there 
be no comfort in yours (and I don’t see much myself), try 
mine, for ’tis the only alternative. The boldest course is> 


6o 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


ever the safest ; trust to my generalship, and we shall pull 
the thing off with credit.” 

“ But why, with my — our cameos upon ye, venture such a 
risk ? ” 

“ The things are not blunt, my boy. I have run foolishly 
short of spending money. A gentleman in my profession needs 
retainers, who expect to be paid punctually. I must turn an 
honest penny at once, for I need a few guineas to reach Oxford, 
where I have still a score or two to settle. 

“ And now good-night to ye. Sleep well. Keep time and 
place in your mind, and play the man for once ! ” 

A bench creaked, the master-thief was arising to go ; would 
he take the plain greensward or the more private side of the 
hedge ? In which case would he not run into the spy in the 
darkness ? Boyle had saved himself once by a well-timed 
move, now he showed his mettle by remaining perfectly still, 
preferring the risk of discovery to the certainty of crossing the 
plot by premature movements among unseen obstacles. His 
judgement was justified : the men took the green. 

He gave them five minutes’ law before following. “ This is 
as in tricut a piece of country as iver I rode,” mused he, 
groping for the extinguished pipe ; “ I’ll be laving no trace of 
me prisince beyint me.” He rearranged sling and bandage 
before approaching the house. A white object wavered and 
floated along the hedgeside before him, and a muffled rattling 
squeal shook the night. 

“ A howlet, begad ! Now there’s some would take that for 
a token of ill-luck, but I don’t hould wid signs. So this is 
Ned Repton ; the youngster seems little better than a school- 
boy; but, my word on’t, he is game. Something will have 
put an edge to him, mebbe.” 

By a light in the yard and the sounds of a mallet, he divined 
that the coach-wrights had arrived and would work all night. 
An early start was to be expected, but the man sate late, 
amusing himself with his landlady and his nightcap of rum 
and milk. Later still, in the privacy of his room, the plans 
floating loosely in his head were brought to a knot. He 
might have been seen stuffing the right sleeve of his overcoat 
with underclothing from his bag, dressing himself this way 
and that, posturing at times before a small cracked looking- 
glass, whistling softly as he worked ; for the man was in better 
spirits than he had known for weeks. Things had gone awry 
with him of late, and from bad to worse. His courage had 
never failed him, indeed, but his belief in his luck had needed 
just such a fillip as this twilight escapade supplied. Now 
the stream of his self-confidence ran strongly again as it had 
not done since he had seen through the smoke of his pistol 


THE GRIFFIN AT MALBY CROSS 


61 




the knees of his latest victim crumple and give way beneath 
the weight of his falling body, and had realised, a little late, 
that whatever might pass in America or in Ireland, in England, 
at least, one gentleman might not shoot another save in the 
presence of reputable witnesses. 

“ ’Tvvas a bit of a shave, begad, that thryal. I confiss I’d 
not reckoned upon ut. Me affairs elsewhere have run to a 
court-martial, or a court of honour ; but these Saxon pock- 
puddings are mighty punctilious, and me nixt must be con- 
ductud a little less hors de regie. We’ll have seconds and 
surgeon and all, according to Cocker, and see if that’ll satusfy 
thim. And, meanwhile, just to fill in time, I’ll be putting 
mesilf right in the eye of authority by a small curtain-raiser 
of me own invintion ; just Act one. Scene one, enter a dis- 
tressed damsel, two thieves and a hayro. 'Tis a histrionic 
jaynious ye are intoirely, Con Boyle, and a tired man. Oh, 
but she’s the gyurrl for me, this’one ! ” 

For some minutes he sate musing with empty hands. The 
child was passing sweet, simple, and gently bred. “ Heighah ! ” 
With an immense yawn he threw himself, dressed as he was, 
upon his bed, and slept the unembarrassed sleep of a weary 
schoolboy. 


CHAPTER III 


MY LANDLADY’S CHAMBER 

Whilst these happenings had befallen the men in the dark 
back-garden of the Griffin, how had it fared with Sue ? 

Having made what supper she could, the girl had besought 
her hostess to show her to her room ; but the woman, her 
hands full — for the trade of the house grew brisker as the 
evening drew in — had given her guest in charge of a chamber- 
maid as full-handed as herself, with two extra rooms to make 
ready at a moment’s notice, and little inclined to waste time 
upon a young miss whose travelling outfit and youth gave 
small promise of a vail. Hence poor little Sue Travis, turned 
adrift in a strange house, was feeling somewhat forlorn. When 
her guide wished her a good-night, bobbed and withdrew, 
she turned herself about in a flutter of dismay. What she 
had expected her bed and her room to be like upon this, the 
first night that she could remember lying from home, she 
could not have said, but for certain they were not to have 
been such as these. Each might be good in its way, but the 
way was not her way ; the room and its plenishing were not 
hers — that attic and curtained alcove, homely and safe, to which 
her whole girl-life of nightly undressings and lyings-down had 
accustomed her. The door filled her with misgivings : she 
could not fasten it, for her hostess and future bedfellow was 
still below ; yet some one might come in ; daunting thought ! 
What, again, if the house should take fire ? Such things did 
happen. She recalled a catastrophe in Chester, seen from 
an upper casement, the rolling cloud of illumined smoke, the 
glare upon the sky, the breakdown of the pumps, the roar 
of the crowd when the roof-tree fell. Should this befall 
she were lost, for she knew herself incapable of finding her 
way to the street by the tortuous stairs and creaking dark 
corridors by which she had been led to this room. 

All things considered, it seemed best to sit, dressed as 
she was, and to await events. ’Twas chilly, rain whispered 


MY LANDLADY'S CHAMBER 63 

without, a pipe gurgled ; she found her cloak, wrapped it 
about her, drew up her feet, yawned, and slept. 

And whilst she sleeps I must be telling you more of Sue, 
of Sue as she was at the outset of her adventure, a girl of 
the simplest, wholly inexperienced in the amazingly new 
great world upon which she was thrown ; a young swallow 
not more so, tossed from its warm, cosy nest in the chimney, 
upon the rollicking winds and widespread landscape dotted 
with distant spires and encircled by blue horizons and un- 
imaginable distances. So Sue ; but ’twas the hand of death 
that had broken up the nest that had sheltered her eighteen 
years of life. 

What was she like ? (I have attempted one rude sketch, a 
mere catalogue of features ; let me essay another, a general 
effect.) Was she a beauty ? 

Yes, Sue was a beauty in the sense that at her coming 
women used their eyes and took their breaths slowly for a 
moment, whilst all men’s glances followed her going. 

And she had arrived so unexpectedly. But a year since 
there had faced you a big coltish child, angular and loose- 
jointed, freshly homely, gifted with a shy, lithe ungainliness, 
white-skinned, maybe, and clear-eyed, and with the sweetest 
of breaths, but all uncoordinate and incomplete : and now 
hey ! what subtle essence of womanliness had stolen down, 
and from whence ? (out of a dim past of multitudinous mother- 
ancestresses ?) and fulfilled her with the nameless grace that 
many women miss in part or wholly, and with which some 
again are too plentifully dowered for their own well-being 
and the happiness of mankind. 

There it was, however, in Sue’s case, that marvellous gift, 
the white magic of charm, and its recipient as cleanly un- 
conscious of its presence as a running stream of its music. 
She had never seen herself reflected in a lad’s eyes, nor found 
herself unexpectedly and delightfully lovely in her mirror 
(a shard of scratched and cloudy glass in which in her 
kittenish moments the child would make amusing grimaces 
at herself). 

And of the three or four whose friendship, or whose acquaint- 
ance, rounded off and closed in her maiden life, not one had 
discovered the miracle that was being worked under his eyes. 
The lily-bud at its tall, green-gray stalk’s end, was unfolding 
at last, unwelcomed, unwatched by the slowly dying aunt 
absorbed in the salvation of her soul, or by the vicar, her 
spiritual doctor, or by her physician, helpless from the first, 
using palliatives, verbal and other, jealously alive to the extent 
of his helpless ignorance. Nor had the metamorphosis been 
noticed by the elderly cook-housekeeper, devoted i overworked, 


64 THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 

who divided with Sue the necessary duties of the melancholy 
household. 

Thus hedged about, thus employed, with hands and heart, 
full of small, daily, tender interests which were her life, the 
child had filled out to physical maturity, and spiritually to 
a gentle, unselfish devotion, both rarely beautiful. 

Then, at a day’s call, as it seemed to the watchers — for the 
end, how so long foretold, is ever unexpected — the spare, dry, 
yellow little aunt, the second mother, her eleven months’ 
agony borne with a heroical patience, had arisen and gone 
forth into the unseen, and the whole scheme of Sue’s life, as 
she understood it, came to an end ; its framework snapped : 
its circumference, the shell that enclosed her, parted, and she 
was thrust forth upon a strange and wonderful world, for 
which there had been the slenderest of preparations. This 
was a final bereavement. Her mother, a paralytic invalid, 
had died two years before ; this was that second shock of 
earthquake which brings to the ground what its forerunner 
dislocates ; it left Sue homeless. Means she had none ; she 
could never look back to a time when her mother and herself 
had not been guests. Her aunt’s annuity had no more than 
kept things going towards the end ; savings of earlier years 
had been applied to the demands of recurrent sickness. There 
was little left. The clothing of the dead woman, and the 
plenishing of the small house passed to the old servant in ful- . 
filment of promises made years before Sue had crossed the 
threshold. A packet of family letters, a book or two, a 
miniature of the dead mother, and twenty pounds, were all 
that the girl faced the world with when she stepped forth from 
the house that had sheltered her young life into a winter’s 
morning to seek her fortune ; in her case an unknown aunt in 
London, who, having never taken any interest in her childhood, 
had at this juncture, in response to the dying appeal of a sister i 
with whom she had quarrelled twenty years earlier, written 
offering house-room to the niece. 

It was a four or five days’ journey, which might run to a 
week, so much depended upon the weather and the roads. 
The thought of it caught the girl’s breath, it also brightened 
her eyes, for Sue was of an adventurous turn, and inherited a 
fine courage, albeit she did not know it. Moreover, and again 
all unwittingly, she carried in her little bosom a talisman — 
trust. There was something incorrigibly infantine about her, 
unconsciously inviting. There are such women ; one en- 
counters them of all ages — age has nothing to do with it ; their 
great, frank, serious eyes look out upon us from chubby 
faces overhung by baby curls ; they trust us in short frocks 
and the simplicity of plump dimpled knees, and in longer 


MY LANDLADY’S CHAMBER 65 

skirts are almost as guileless. In middle life, having enjoyed 
their experiences, they naturally know more, but retain their 
faith in men. As apple-cheeked, wrinkled old darlings in 
gray false fronts and glasses, their laugh is as clear and as 
innocent, their charity still abounds. To three score and 
ten they go on trusting, wondering, loving, daring, and pardon- 
ing. God bless them ! 

Sue was of this sort, a sort the world can in no wise do 
without. It is of the small list of essentials. Woman’s brain 
may or may not be necessary to the race, but as to woman’s 
breast there is no room for doubt. She was of the sisterhood 
of the Holy Innocents : there would be tears in her cup of 
life ; she was to have her adventures. So much was written, 
and this also, that she was never to want for a friend, for the 
child was watched over, and her Guardian Angel was strong. 

Here, at the end of her first day’s travel, she had fallen 
among — but let me drop my pointer and allow my story to tell 
itself. 

The chamber into which she had been shown was one of 
three into which the great court-room of the former manor- 
house had been divided, the closets thus obtained being 
partitioned off from one another by panelled bulkheads, their 
knot-holes and crevices inadequately stopped with screws 
of paper. The cubicules were ill-proportioned, but had secured 
a window apiece ; that wherein the hostess lay was made 
inconveniently glorious by a huge carven overmantel, sup- 
ported by blubber-lipped demi-moors plumed and cinctured, 
unconsciously grotesque as Southsea idols, examples of that 
Jacobean nadir of taste to which the beautiful fifteenth - 
century art of our England had descended. In the panel 
above the hearth a scrolled escutcheon bore the faded 
achievement of the Chorley blazon, a house attainted after 
the ’15 and since extinct. 

The woman came wearily up the stair in her stocking-feet, 
breathing thankfully at every other step for that another 
day’s work was over, unhasped the door, and stepped into 
the dark room, shading the dip with her hand. 

“ La ! the bed’s empty ! — wherever ? God bless the 
lamb, she be moidered out.” 

The girl, still dressed and coiled in her cloak, her little 
feet drawn up beneath her for warmth, and her hands tucked 
under her arms, sat sleeping in the soft depths of a set- 
stitched armchair, a relic of the house’s great days. The 
woman’s lips fell apart, her eyes smiled. “ Pretty as apictur’ ! 
’Tis a shame to rouse ye, my pet ; but, yes, dearie, ye must 
get up and out o’ your stays, or your poor sides ’ll be sore 
to-morrow. Come, I’ll onlace ye myself, and let yer hair 

5 


66 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 

down, or these pins and combs ’ll be bruising yer little head. 
There ! there ! And was it afraid to undress ? Ye are safe 
enow, my dear. See, I’ll shoot the bolt and set the big chair 
to the door, so. We may chat awhile, there’s none through 
the wall ; I have put the gentlemen in the other wing : both 
have taken their candles. I be the last afoot in the house : 
’tis my constant rule, and a good one.” 

The girl sate up, rubbing eyes mazed with her awakening, 
and submitted herself passively to the compassionate offices 
of her hostess. At first her little noddle fell drowsily to right 
and left, but presently, responding to the passage of the 
brush over her tresses, she turned up a pair of cheeks still 
rosy with sleep, and wondering gray eyes, to the free-tongued 
talk of the elder woman. 

“ And ye came from Chester and are going to London. 
Fancy ! And to think that ye’ll be seeing London town ! 
They say ’tis a marvel of a place. And what did ye make of 
your gentlemen to-day ? One was nought, a dummy ; but 
that Irishman — Mr. Tighe, he calls himself — is quite the fine 
man. What ? Ye never noticed ? Child, what are yer 
pretty eyes for ? ” 

“I’m sure he seemed very attentive ; he talked a great deal, 
but I didn’t quite understand him, I think. He seemed to 
want — somehow, Oh, I don’t know ! ” 

“ Ye ‘ think ’ ? — ye ‘ don’t know ’ ? Saints alive, what a 
babe ! ” muttered the hostess, putting the nigh trail over the 
fair head, and admiringly holding it aloft for a moment before 
letting it slip down over dimpled shoulders of infantine 
plumpness and delicacy. 

“ ’Tis a babe, no better. The child have never bin told 
what she be meant for ; no, nor hev found it out for herself. 
And here she be throwed upon the varsal world naked-like, 
a gift to the first man who casts his eye upon her . . . My 
God ! ” 

Susan was sleeping as she sat, but the last word of the 
soliloquy touched some responsive chord in her bosom. 

“ Oh, my prayers — I’d forgot ! ” She slipped down upon 
her knees beside the bed and fitted her little palms, childlike, 
to her face. “ Our Father, which art in heaven ” 

Oh, weak defence and piteously futile ! Wait ; not so 
held the woman of the world who watched her. 

“ B’ God, and that’s well done, too, for neither I nor living 
soul o’ man can save ye. . . . Girl ! ” The child had arisen, the 
woman, holding her by the shoulders, was peering keenly 
and motherly into the half sleepy, half frightened eyes. 
“ Girl, have ye never cared for a lad ? ‘ Yer brother ? ’ — tut, 
tut, not that way, silly ! Has none other kissed ye ? ‘ Yer 


MY LANDLADY’S CHAMBER 


67 

poor auntie ? ’ Christ, what an innocent ! How is a body 
to begin ? 'Slife, there’s no resistance in her ! She’s as 
open as a rose, and as tempting. Girl ! girl ! ye must marry 
— marry ! ’tis written between yer very eyes. D’ye believe 
in signs ? Ye do ? Then I’ll cut the pack for ye — -nay, the 
Book, since ye are plainly one of the Good God’s little ones. 
Here ! ” She mounted a stool, and with a grunt, reached 
down from its shelf a stout, dusty Bible, crossed herself, 
bowed to the four corners of the room, “ Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John, bless the varse as I turn on ! ” and pricked 
for a text between the leaves with a cap-pin from her own 
head. “ There ye be, my dearie, read, for I be no scholard 
in small print.” 

Sue hung low over the book on the goodwife’s lap, and, 
holding the dip near, read from the pin’s point forward, 
these words, “. . . . man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons 
marry thee. ,y 

“ Did y’ever ? ” gasped the hostess in delighted wonder. 
“ ’Tis a true sign — a sending. Girl, there’s nothing for such 
as ye be but a man, a master. God send ye a kind one ! ” 

“ But — but, I don’t think I want to. Poor auntie never 
did. Why should I ? and who ? and what for ? ” faltered 
Sue. 

“ Oh ye little, little fool ! ” laughed the woman, now 
half unclad, enfolding and kissing her bedfellow. “ Why ? 
(how can a body say it to such a child ?) Because, my lamb, 
God made ye for it, and so ye must. ’Tis not in nature for 
such a piece as you to make a nun. No, b’ God ! So, since 
London town, that ye say y’re bound for, is against ye 
(a very trap for maids !) and every man ye meet ’ll be against 
ye, and the very Book Itself be against ye, there’s nought 
for it but to do as yer mother did, and choose whilst choose 
ye may. Aye, when the first strapping gentleman cries 
* Snip ! ’ do ye cry ‘ Snap ! ’ and hold him to ring, book, 
and priest. 

“ But pray yer hardest for a fine man, a tall, strong, 
personable gentleman ; he’ll beat ye a bit, no doubt, when 
in drink — they all do, and they’ve the law for it. But the 
big men are soft ’uns and easy to manage. But beware of a 
little man (bless ye, I’ve tried — twice a widow I be, and here 
ye have me) ! No, no, my lamb, be advised. Hop-o-my- 
thumbs are jealous and main spiteful, ay, and bad to abide. 
Marry a big upstanding man, say I, ay, though he have 
a red face on him ” 

“ Oh, oh, please no more ! ” sobbed the girl, with scared, 
wet eyes shining in the flicker of the dip, “ Marry ? Why ? 
What should I want with ? What do I do ? ” 


68 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


“ Save us and keep us ! ” breathed the woman, her great 

knee on the bed’s edge. “ Did yer mother never ? ” 

“ How could she ? She had a stroke when I was little, and 
poor auntie was single and never spoke of such things, nor 
let a man pass the door save the sweep and the vicar. She 
never told me, and I don’t want to know ; please, I won't 
know ! ” 

“ God pity thee ! ” muttered the woman, and blew out 
the light. 


/ 


CHAPTER IV 

SANDYLANE HILL 

The coach lurched and splashed through a whiteness of 
morning fog. The three passengers, well wrapped against 
the chill, held by the window-straps, minimising inevitable 
collisions. The glum young man bore his joltings in silence, 
his vis-a-vis, the lady, thought him ill, so wan a face was he 
wearing beneath the pulled-down peak of his montier. The 
Major might be suffering more, but made no complaint, 
albeit the lady, do what she would, was repeatedly thrown 
against the arm which he carried in a sling. For these 
misadventures she proffered brief but feeling excuses, which 
after a momentary sucking-in of the lips, or a tightening of 
the eyelids, the sufferer accepted with a good-humoured 
laugh. 

“ Gad, my dear madam, ’tis no fault of yours that we are 
shaken like pease in a bladder ; and me arr’m, which another 
time would be very much at your servus, is obliged to ye 
for your kindnuss. It might asily have chanced upon a 
harder coach-mate than your soft little silf. If ’tis foive 
days’ close confinement in wan another’s company that we’re 
committed for, ’tis thanking the saints I’ll be, and wishing 
I may niver fall into worse company.” 

The lady would acknowledge such advances with a 
slight inclination and turn her veiled face again to the 
window. 

They had started betimes again, and had the road to them- 
selves ; the world seemed yet abed and the ways empty of 
passengers, as was to be expected in a day when, save on 
business of life and death, few travelled by night. And for 
reasons ; the condition of the tracks for one ; the king’s 
highways were worse kept then than a parish by-road is 
to-day. Whilst Susan and her companions in misery were 
being swung and bumped from rut to puddle. Macadam, 

69 


70 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


a youngster of one-and-twenty, was thinking out in his 
American home the principles upon which a road should be 
built, principles hidden from Britons since the legions left 
us. Moreover, save upon certain well-patrolled turnpikes, 
and such were few, there were the Gentlemen of the Road 
to reckon with. “The Right Villanous John Hall, that 
Famous and Notorious Robber ” (I quote from a contemporary 
tract), had gone to his account some years before our story 
begins, and his successor, one Denis Neale, the so-called 
Second Turpin, and many another of the breed, had galloped 
and bullied and swung in chains in turn ; but an unapos- 
tolical succession of rascals had arisen to wear vizard and 
halter, the darlings and heroes of every chamber-wench 
and stable-lad down the road. 

How else ? What would they have, those economists of the 
school of Walpole ? “ Stop the war ! ” they had cried. 

“ Disband the cavalry ! ” ’Twas done, and some thousands 
of the best horsemen and boldest spirits in Europe found 
themselves thrown upon the world to starve. Can ye wonder 
that they preferred to steal ? 

There were many at it, and had been since the fall of 
Marlborough. It speaks well for our national character and 
tacit respect for a law which we may feel ourselves compelled 
fo break, that these knights -errant fought each for his own 
hand, instead of forming such bands as terrorised southern 
France. Who now recalls that Bonaparte at the summit 
of his power, while giving the law to kings, could only travel 
from Marseilles to Genoa under a strong military escort ? 
With King George ’twas never so desperate a case. Yet 
highway robbery, considered as a profession, had much to 
be said for it during the hundred and sixty years between 
the Restoration and the Regency, and might not unreason- 
ably be held to offer to a disbanded light dragoon or broken 
second horseman more prizes and fewer blanks than he could 
have found in either a civil or military career. He led the 
life he loved — the j oiliest life in the world whilst it lasted — and 
when his time came (and his time comes to each of us), it was 
bullet or rope at the best, and, at the worst, the plantations, 
or, in war-time, re-enlistment for the Indies, or a waister’s 
berth in a King’s ship, alternatives scarce worse than were 
faced by the Jack or the linesman of a brutal day wherein 
poor fellows were flogged round the fleet, or cut to 
ribands at the triangles before being discharged to beg 
on crutches. 

The life of the road called many a desperate fellow, who 
was sure of friends everywhere, and might find one even in 
the jury-box ; failing of whom, would he not kiss his hand 


SANDYLANE HILL 


7i 

to the ladies in the gallery, pass his nosegay to his lawyer, 
bow to the judge and — live in a moving ballad ? 

'* Six roving lads to carry me, 

Gi’ they long life and liberty ; 

Six blooming maids to carry my pall, 

Gi’ they true loves and blue ribands all.” 

(But, about your coach, sir, and Miss Susan ? Verify, 
reader, all in good time, let me get into my stride !) 

Creaking, jolting, bumping, they went until, at the foot of 
the ascent, the smoking cattle were brought to a stand and 
let get their winds for their coming effort. The guard flung 
the door open, and, whilst bidding the gentlemen to alight, 
gallantly permitted the lady to keep her seat. But this the 
girl refused to think of : her limbs were already calling for 
exercise. “ May I not walk beside ye, Mr. Guard ? ” She 
was down before he could lower the step. 

The coachman had made his reins fast to the whip-socket 
and took the head of his near leader. “ Gee,” cried he. His 
team spread quarters and went up into their collars with a 
will : the lightened coach was around the first bend and 
lost in the fog before the pedestrians had unstiffened knees 
cramped by sitting. 

“ Shall ha’ no call for to borrer a plough-team to get her 
oop Sandylane Hill to-day, madam,” said the guard, and 
carrying his weapon in the crook of his elbow, strode beside 
the lady, regarding her with fatherly approval. She had 
raised her veil when the men fell behind, and now, loosening 
her bonnet-strings, lifted the poke from her beautiful young 
head, and bore it dangling from her wrist as she tripped 
beside her companion. 

The men were mounting more slowly, the Major going 
heavily with grumblings as to his bandaged arm ; the glum 
young man, wanner than ever, keeping close beside his 
companion for reasons that we wot of. 

“ Stap me vitals ! But I’ve the Virginia chills upon me ! ” 
growled the soldier. “D’ye know what that means ? 
Thought I’d shaken thim off, but no such luck ! And me 
wound has opened again with the bumping of this infernal 
stage. I’ll thank ye to lind me the suppor’rt of yer ar’rm, 
me dear sir.” Whilst speaking he had passed a massive left 
hand through the elbow timidly offered. Baskett felt with 
an inward qualm the weight and power of it ; his stomach 
heaved at the thought of what was at hand ; sweat broke 
beneath his wig. 

Thus climbing, with frequent pauses for breath, for the 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


72 

Major seemed in poor condition, the two approached a dense 
holly-bush which screened a winding of the ascent ; they reached 
it, were abreast of it ; the glum young man caught his breath 
with an inward cry, and gripped the brawny wrist with both 
his damp, white hands, for a masked man had stepped from 
the thicket, and was covering the Major with a pistol at point- 
blank range. 

“ Your purse, sir, if you please ! ” 

“ Me purse ? And what nixt ? ” blurted the Irishman. 
“ Futpads, be all that’s hooly ! If ’tis money ye’re afther, 
'tis a small matther ye’ll be gettin’ from me ; just a crippled 
sowldier’s savings an’ the curse of Cromwell along wid thim ! 
Hooly Saint Biddy ! If ’twas a sound man I was this day — 

but, wid wan ar’rm in splints and the other in chancery ” 

he swore hoarsely. 

“ Which pocket, sir ? and no nonsense, I beg.” 

“ Har’rk to him, he begs. Sure, ’tis the Jaynius of polite- 
nuss ! But ‘ nonsinse,’ is ut ? Left, thin ; me lift fob, of 
course. Where ilse ? But if this small man were not grippin’ 
me wrist like a fox-thrap, stap me liver, but I’d have taken 
the two of yez on wid me nakud fist, pistol or none.” 

He blustered volubly, but seemed to quail when the cold 
muzzle was pressed to his forehead, and, letting pent breath, 
threw forward his left hip, its fob opportunely unbuttoned. 

The vizarded robber, still keeping muzzle to flesh, glanced 
irresolutely at his confederate, who, with staring eyes and 
upper lip drawn to the gum, was breathing painfully, all 
emotions congested in one — fear ; and all senses in abeyance 
save the ear, astrain for coming wheels. Such a poltroon might 
be trusted to cling to what he was holding, but bid him 
relax his grip and he was all as likely to bolt as to pick the 
pocket. “ The Scholar ” must take this purse himself. 

Shifting his weapon to his left hand, he drove his right into 
the open fob, and in the act of bending, tumbled sidelong, 
for a spurt of pale flame burst from beneath the bandaged 
arm of his prisoner. 

“ Oh-h-h-h ! ” gasped the ex-chaplain, clapping hands to 
ears and sitting down in the dirt. 

“ Nate shot, begad ! ” remarked the Major, stepping back 
from, and peering under, the smoke of his pistol, ere taking 
possession of the one which his aggressor had let fall. He 
covered him for a couple of breaths, but the man’s half-open 
eyes were fixed, nor was there any movement of the relaxed 
limbs. Blood began to ooze from the back of the fallen 
head. 

“ Dead as Herod ! ” was the victor’s comment. “ And 
look ye there, now ; 'tis me purse he has in his hand, thief 


SANDYLANE HILL 




73 


of the wor’rld that he is ! A-well, my friend, exchange is no 
robbery ; permit me.” 

Still holding the captured weapon ready for instant use, 
he bent over the fallen man, whom he relieved of a second 
pistol, a watch, and seals (“ preshumably stolen ”) and a 
shamoy belt, which last he hastily bestowed in his own boot. 
He worked with the silent despatch of a man who expects 
interruption, and only when his transferences were com- 
pleted, spared a glance at the lachrymose creature beside 
him. 

“ Liss noise, little man ; attind now ! ” He shook him 
by the shoulder. “You are aware that I’ve yer dirthy neck 
in my breeches pockut ? As ut happens, I’ve another use for 
ut, in fact, I give ut back to yez — ye may put ut in yer own 
— on conditions, mind, on conditions. Ye will now come 
up to London wid me — yes, as if nothing had happened.” 
The face of the cowering wretch unpuckered, expressing a 
half incredulous relief. “ Oh, I mean ut. ‘ Will I be giving 
, ye up ? ’ I will not ; that is if yez do as I tell ye. Ye were 
a sort of orderly to this dead tory here, and it has lid ye 
to this. Be mine, me son, and ye’ll not regret ut.” 

“ Do — do ye mean to say ? ” 

“ That I ixtend to ye the royal pardon ? I do that. But 
see this, now ; I release ye on yer parowle, which is to serve me 
until I’ve done wid ye ; and whin I speak of servus I mean 
military obejunce , hand, fut, and eyelid, and no argymunts. 
Ye may have observed that I’m apt to be a thrifle abrupt whin 
1 crossed. Is ut a bargain ? ” 

Never was service more promptly exchanged. 

“ Yes, yes ! O, I thank and bless you ! I will pray for ye 
until the last day of my life.” 

“ I may need ut. But yer first juty shall be to put up a bit 
of a prayer for yer frind here, who was a bould bhoy if iver I 
saw wan.” 

1 “ Prayer for the dead ! Sir, ’tis contrary to the Articles ! 
I am a Protestant — Church of England as bylaw established.” 

“ Mutiny, begad ! Does the sniveller dispute me first com- 
mand ? Har’rk ye, now, small man. Yer ordhers are widout 
doubt heretical and invalud, but they’ll be betther than none. 
I’m tould that ye’re a kind of a sort of a priest, so down upon 
yer marrow-bones and to yer off us. Short work ye must make 
of ut, for the coach ’ll be waitin’ ; but the poor bhoy here shall 
not slip through yer fingers into hell-fire if ye can anyways 
smuggle him into purgatory. Begin now ! ” 


CHAPTER V 




MORE OF SANDYLANE HILL 

Major Justin rode gently, for the day was young, and a wise 
man allows the horse which is to carry him until nightfall to 
begin at a foot-pace. The six months which had passed over 
him since he had sailed from Madras upon special service had 
treated him lightly. The voyage, with its head winds from 
Point de Galle to the Comoros, its brush with a French pirate 
in the Mozambique Channel, and subsequent refitting at the 
Cape, was over at last. His interviews with the Court of 
Governors had been something better than satisfactory ; he 
had left the service with handsome compliments and a well- 
earned grant, the amount of which had somewhat staggered 
its recipient, who, alone of those present when it was tendered 
and accepted, had not understood that it was intended to seal 
the lips of a man who knew a great deal too much, but whose 
silence was not to be formally bought. There had been specu- 
lation among exalted personages as to his reasons for leaving 
their service, surprise at his reputed poverty, and regrets at 
parting with a servant whose capacity they had recognised 
somewhat late. 

Other interviews had followed. A man of his quality, fresh 
from the seat of war, was worth the notice of King George’s 
ministers. Justin had waited in anterooms and sate in the 
presence of Great Names, whom he found upon near acquaint- 
ance to be gouty, fidgety persons, who swore more abominably 
in their conversation than the ship’s officers had done in dirty 
weather, whose selfishness exceeded anything which he had 
met with in the course of his military life, and whose ignorance 
of Eastern affairs bewildered him. Where was he to begin 
with gentlemen who could not carry in their heads from one 
interview to the next the relative positions of Madras and 
Bombay, whose attentions were constantly diverted by im- 
material trifles, and whose senses were obscured by overnight 
excess ? 

That our friend had favourably impressed these demigods 

74 


MORE OF SANDYLANE HILL 


75 

may be inferred from their offers of patronage. Inducements 
had been held out to him to enter the Royal service, and Justin, 
as a wise man, had gravely and courteously temporised. He 
had considered, and was still considering, these proffers. It 
was hoped at the War Office that so soon as his private affairs 
permitted, he would accept a majority in one of the new regi- 
ments being raised for service in America. Had he stipulated 
for a colonelcy he would have got it. 

He had had singular experiences. Very much to his amaze- 
ment, Society discovered him. The Town, badly in want of a 
sensation, was disposed to throw itself at the feet of this latest 
wonder from the Indies, a nabob with clean hands. Our friend 
had all his work to do to keep himself from being the rage. 
Great ladies would have pushed his fortunes, handkerchiefs 
were thrown, and soft glances greeted him from behind fans ; 
but this man kept his head, smiling non-committally and — 
wonder of wonders — made no enemies. Of the crowd who 
had pressed for introductions one face remained in his memory, 
the visage of a plain-featured man with an ear-trumpet, broad, 
snuffy upper lip, and a pair of remarkable eyes, a painter of 
portraits, it seemed, for he intimated his willingness to paint 
the Major’s, an honour which our friend bashfully declined, 
nor knew that half the Town would have leapt at the offer, nor 
that in refusing it he had forfeited immortality : for the artist 
was Reynolds. 

His future thus dawning rosily before him, Justin could 
apply himself to the business which lay next to his heart, the 
finding and assisting the children of the only woman whom he 
had ever loved, and the only man whom he had ever hated. 

The charges of those pistols were in process of realisation. 
His man of business advised him that such stones were not to 
be hastily thrown upon the market ; give him time, and he 
would do justice to the commission : a couple of pretty fortunes 
had lain hidden in those long gray barrels. 

But how to find the beneficiaries ? The discovery of missing 
friends is simplified to-day by advertisement, photography, the 
private inquiry agency, and the assistance of the police, of which 
institutions three were unborn in Justin’s time and the fourth 
in its infancy. 

Our friend did what was possible ; some thirty country 
editors kept his need before their subscribers. Sandwiched 
between rewards for the apprehension of defaulting stewards, 
descriptions of lost property, and milliners’ announcements of 
the arrival of fashion-dolls from Paris (in war-time, ye ladies, 
smuggled at risk of brave men’s necks) ; yes, and alternating 
with challenges to prize fights and notices of the sales of black 
boys “ by the candle,” might have been seen our friend’s 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


76 

offer of fifty guineas for information as to the present addresses 
of Sigismund Draycott Travis and Susan Agatha Travis, chil- 
dren of Colonel Travis of the Honourable East India Company’s 
service and Agatha his wife, the latter deceased, but last 
known as residing at Woodbine Cottage, Peckham Road, 
Camberwell. 

The case was far from hopeless, for the middle class, the only 
one with which he needed to concern himself, was but a fraction 
of what it is to-day, and the number of returned East Indians 
quite insignificant, and the more likely to be remarked by their 
neighbours. He would prosecute his search in person, and in 
neighbourhoods likely to be affected by the genteel poor. 

Highgate and Clapham, Paddington and Kennington had 
failed him, and Bath and Tunbridge Wells. No suspicions of 
seaside residence disturbed him. Brighton Steyne (then 
Brighthelmstone) was still a place for the spreading of nets, and 
every doctor would have warned his patient against inhaling 
“ the noxious fumes of the ocean.” A hint from a landlady in 
Streatham had sent the Major eastward to a poorer lodging 
in Camberwell, and from this — directed by a barber-surgeon, 
in whose memory lingered some indistinct recollection of letting 
blood from a sick child and its mother’s anxieties during flitting 
— he was working a cold scent toward Chester. It was not his 
first long ride on this business, but he rode hopefully, silently, 
convinced that “ Providence ” would bless his quest. There 
have been such men in the past ; their successors are with us 
still : politely pertinacious, doggedly cheerful fellows, upheld 
by inner springs of certitude, who go smiling upon some self- 
imposed duty until they succeed, or haply die smiling, nobly 
optimistic, ungrumbling — the salt of the earth, which were 
otherwise less sanitary than we find it. 

He would have scouted the idea of hardship. Was he not a 
free man for the first time in his life, with leisure to attend to 
his own affairs, and with means to see his native land ? The 
air of the winter roads, raw or keen, smacked well to him ; 
rains smote him over the shoulder like privileged old friends ; 
mop-headed staglers, topping roadside quicks, nodded in turn 
to him respectful but confidential recognitions ; branching 
oaks stretched low-hung arms towards him in silent greeting ; 
thrushes sang “ Home a-gain ! — Home a-gain ! — We know you ! 
We know you ! ” And he, well fed, well-cloaked, with a stout 
cob between his knees and with all his limbs — he, who had 
come through so many affairs, reverently thanked “ Provi- 
dence ” and rode with a good heart. 

Providence. Some of you will be asking how this man’s inner 
life was fed and sustained at its level of restraint and impulse. 
Men, for the most part, are not good or bad because they are 


MORE OF SANDYLANE HILL 


77 

born so, but build themselves upon some spiritual pattern of 
their acceptance ; falling below it, no doubt, but conforming in 
the main, and even in failure showing the influence of their 
creed. 

Justin was well-nigh creedless. His life had been cast 
from boyhood among unsympathetic surroundings and strong 
temptations, but the poverty of a poor gentleman volunteer 
had proven a stern friend to him, and had kept his youth from 
riot and mischief. In the seclusion and loneliness necessitated 
by rigid economy he had been thrown upon simpler and purer 
sources of human companionship ; had seen the finer side 
of the native ; had shown, and been shown in turn, dis- 
interested kindnesses, and had built himself nobly ?„nd 
unconsciously. 

Thus of character he had much, if of dogmatic religion little. 
The Anglo-Ipdian society of his day, demoralised by rapid 
fluctuations of fortune, hard of heart and fierce in its pursuit 
of the new wealth, was ostentatiously irreligious. It was 
observed, and resented, that the returned nabob, whether in 
pursuit of his pleasures, or in playing the game of politics, stuck 
at little ; those who had watched him making his money 
averred that in India he had stuck at nothing. Surrounded 
and commanded by such as these, young Justin had tacitly 
erected for himself sanctions of his own ; Christianus naturaliter , 
for him, still there were things which no gentleman could do ; 
and within these rigid outer defences had grown up and bloomed 
a minutely cultivated garden of the heart known to few of his 
colour, but of which his servants and domestic animals were 
free. 

This mare had the key of it, this roadster, his latest acquisi- 
tion, she who had flinched at the first casual contraction of his 
heels, and had broken when he had sorted the reins, after the 
second day’s handling was at her ease beneath him, and now, 
well pleased with herself and her master, butted confidently 
on through the morning thickness filling a stealthy, silent 
winter road which she had never travelled before, secure in his 
piloting. 

Nature practised old, nigh-forgotten tricks upon him. Like 
half-remembered acquaintance, unsure of their welcomes, the 
country sounds and scents, and country silence, drew shyly 
up to the horseman, nodded and passed. Now the faint, far- 
away scritch of a jay, muffled by distance and intervening bosk- 
age, reminded him of his lost boyhood ; and now the hot, rank 
vermin-taint tickled his nostril, telling that, just where the 
mare’s feet were set, a dog-fox had crossed not a minute since. 
Justin inhaled, bending low over his holster, padded the hen- 
thief in the sandy loam thrown up at the edge of a rut, and rode 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


78 

on smiling as only he can smile whose inmost heart is at peace 
with itself anchwith his brother man. 

On this, as on other lonely ridings, Justin was wont to be 
painting for himself imaginary portraits of the two young folk 
he was seeking. “ So, should she stand, just as high as that 
lass beside the lych-gate, but no taller ; her mother was not 
tall. As for. her hair: it should be dark, though they tell me 
a woman with dark hair, such hair as Agatha’s, often starts with 
a flaxen poll in childhood and darkens slowly later. She shall 
not be a tow-headed Saxon, though, I cannot think it ; nor lump- 
ish, nor thick in the ankle, as this that is coming with the pails 
and yoke. ... As for my boy, he must be twenty by now, a tall 
fellow, a man grown, and just in need of a father to start him 
in life. . . . Hope I be come in time to keep the young rascal 
out of mischief. Eh, but how will such a spark take it from 
me, a stranger ? ” 

This for a sample musing. On the day of our choosing, a 
day of deep wet ways and veiled woodlands, he rode with a 
bosom full of cheerful anticipations, and so undisturbed, the 
roads being empty of footfolk, that he had neither met nor 
overtaken a soul since the last hamlet. Then, just where the 
woods closed in upon a hollow way, and the ground began to 
fall, and mist lay blank and thick, he must needs come full 
upon four steaming coach-horses at a stand, their winter coats 
dripping with sweat, necks at stretch, and rounded nostrils 
pink with recent exertion. Their driver was at the head of 
the near leader, rubbing the creature’s ears — a rat-tailed hero 
with trembling knees who had done his share of the work and 
more — rating meanwhile the off-leader, a roman-nosed, lop- 
eared slug, with sly, half-shut eye and fat sides wealed with 
the thong. Justin, who knew a horse, took it all in at a glance. 

The stage behind stood empty, door open and step down, 
and beside it the guard and a young woman in warm gray 
travelling-cloak caught up in one hand from shoes soiled by the 
way. As the rider emerged from the fog, this bonny creature 
turned up to him a serious, simple, sweet-and-twenty face, or 
it might have been a couple of years younger, its cheeks bright 
with such textures and carmines as take the very breath of a 
man newly come from the tropics. Lord, how those great 
gray eyes shone upon the horseman from under a loosened wisp 
of mutinous hair ! a tress which her fingers were at work upon 
as she stood, her bonnet looped from her elbow by its strings. 

His face must have expressed the pleasure that he felt ; but 
there was never woman yet that had flushed painfully beneath 
Justin’s eye. The child met it frankly ; the life of the road was 
still new and wonderful to this hitherto cloistered creature : a 
new world of men, strong, strange, shaven, top-booted persons. 


MORE OF SANDYLANE HILL 


79 

with resonant voices, big hands, and queer ways, some taking, 
some repellent, all interesting. 

“ God bless your sweet face, my maid ! ” was Justin’s un- 
spoken prayer whilst courteously uncovering ; for the guard, 
I who was in act of [setting horn to lip, lowered it and stayed 
him with uplifted hand. 

“ ’Mornin’ t’ye, sir ; ye’ll be meetin’ two o’ my fares below, 
a tall gentleman and a smaller : might I be so bold as to arst 
| ye to bid ’em to hurry up for my time’s take ? ” 

Justin would do so with pleasure. He covered himself and 

I bade them good- day. The fog thickened between them as he 
passed on, muting the guard’s gruff and the lady’s sweeter 
l response. His mare’s withers sunk and sunk as each shorten- 
ing step committed her to the unseen descent. By the quick 
I patter of multitudinous falling drops, he knew that he must 
be in the heart of a woodland ; the solitude of a fog enwrapped 
him — a lonely, unsatisfactory, half silence, filled with small, 
j distracting sounds, and broken presently and abruptly by the 
I crack of a whip down below. 

That young face of innocent wonder went with him. “ A 
sweet girl to look upon, surely a good girl,” he mused. “ Will 
my girl, when I find her, be such another ? They will be much 
of an age, I should say.” And therewith he fell to thinking of 
t how little he knew of young women of any colour, and least 
of all of the young women of his own race. 

Cautiously went the mare, keeping her quarters well under 
her, butting with lowered head into the smother, winding as 
the road wound, setting down foot after foot firmly into deep, 
) damp sand ; her good brown eyes upon the track ahead of 
her, but her nostrils wide and her ears cocked forward, for there 
, was a tang in the wet air that puzzled, a rank, smoky smatch 
which she could not explain to herself. Her rider detected her 
* anxiety and watched her ears. Pit-a-pat fell the drops, deaden- 
ing smaller sounds. Then, close at hand, began a sing-song 
recitative interrupted by sniffs, and rounding a black holly- 
bush which held the fog like a sponge and dripped from every 
glossy leaf, the mare checked suddenly with a strong shudder. 
Justin’s hand went out to his holster, but was as promptly 
withdrawn. In the midst of the way, not ten yards below 
him, lay a man bareheaded, save for a black vizard, a touch 
that told all ; the rogue, whoever he might be, and however 
he had come there, had fallen to some sudden and mortal stroke 
without struggle, nor had so much as raised a hand. A hat 
lay near. Instantly Justin was aware that beyond the body 
' knelt a man with bare white face drawn with fear, gabbling 
prayers with lips which seemed scarcely under control, whilst 
behind him, less distinct, through moving threads of vapour, 


8o 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


with hand upon his shoulder, keeping him down, stood a bigger 
man. Both were uncovered. This last seemed a person of re- 
source. “ Sir — who the devil ? ” he rapped. “ Put up your j| 

hands, or ” he dived for a weapon in some inner pocket. 

•* Needless, sir,” replied Justin, uncovering, “ but under the \ 
circumstances excusable. I can see how it stands.” 

“ Ye may that, honust man,” cried the other heartily. “ Yer I 
pardon’s begged ; I was a thought hasty ; for indade ye made jj 
me jump. The blayguard here ” 

“ Stopped you ? ” 

“ He did. And I him. He has ate an half-ounce of me lead, [ 
a full male, seemin’ly, for I got him behint the ear (I niver 
permit mesilf to miss) : ay, not a minute since. I’m wondering 
ye did not hear my shot.” 

The speaker, a robust and soldierly figure, dominantly tall, ! 
took the matter too coolly for Justin’s taste. Even in Ireland 
(the man’s tongue bewrayed him) one might be excused for ! 
showing concern at having blown the brains out of a fellow t 
creature. None was shown here ; the prayer had ceased j 
abruptly upon the new comer’s appearance, and the signifi- 
cance of the bared heads escaped him. Our friend found the 
man’s personality antipathetic at his first glance ; there was 
more than a touch of the victorious gladiator in his pose, 
a wounded gladiator too, by his bandaged arm. 

“ A ruse de guerre, me dear sir,” laughed the Irishman, 
replying to Justin’s unspoken inquiry. “ ’Tis just a dummy, 
an improvised ambushcade, a casual invintion, a little thing , 
of me own. I fired from beneath ut, just as the rogue was 
for handling me. Indade, the dirthy fist of him was in me 
fob as I pulled.” He tossed the stuffed sleeve as he spoke, 
displaying the pistol -hand it had concealed. 

“ Who is he ? ” asked Justin, peering down upon the 
corpse. None replied. The smaller man had arisen and was ;i 
beating the sand from his knees, breathing the while in short 
gasps, a creature unnerved. The guard’s horn came dully 
from above. 

“ They are sounding the recall ; we must be rejoining the ! 
main command, me frind,” said the Irishman, who, having i 
pouched the spoils, was in haste to be gone ; turning to the ;■ 
rueful figure beside him, he plucked him by the sleeve with a [ 
“ H-now, sor ! ” 

“ But, the body — will ye leave it — so ? ” asked Justin. 

“ Faith, me dear sor, I will that. I have not a coff’n about 
me. Me friend here has done the needful.” The man had ’ 
stirred a foot, but something in the horseman’s eye detained 
him. After a momentary survey of the hand and seat, he 
resumed with hauteur : “ I have not the honour of knowing 


MORE OF SANDYLANE HILL 


81 


r i yer servuss, but, unless I am mightily desaved in ye, we 
' j have both of us seen prettier and honuster bhoys than this 
dead raparee here, left where the bullets found thim. . . . 
A-there, now, am I not right ? . . . . Sure, I have put in 
; me morning’s wor’rk, and the townland to which I have done 
the good-turn this day may find cart and shovel for him. 
r I was niver in command of a burying party, and do not pro- 

e ! pose ” He turned roughly upon his companion. “ Come, 

Mister Sniveller, ’tis me tur’rn to offer yez an ar’rm. Stip 
out ! A good-day to ye, sor ! ” Tucking the cringing creature 
, beneath his elbow, the bully strode up the hill. 

Justin turned in his saddle and watched him go with a 
, f narrowing eye. He could admire resource in self-defence, 
and the tense-drawn nerve which can face a loaded barrel 
without giving ; but this went beyond him. Even in the 
; East they did not pistol a dacoit and ride on with a laugh ; 

: ’twas butcherly. 

Meanwhile, though the fog had engulfed the pair, he could 
1 j hear the Irishman, whose voice had a resonant quality which 
- f carried, addressing, or perhaps rating his companion. 

“ Hould up, small thief that ye are, and don’t be draggin’ 

; yer feet. And a wor’rd in yer ear, me frind, before we 
j rejoin the leedy. Ye will be pleased to ride beside the coach- 
! man for the rist of this journey. D’ye ondersthand ? ” 

The relations of this pair seemed unconventional ; but 
Justin had other things to think of ; the corpse in the rut 
g cried mutely for pity. The poor rascal had staked his life 
,5 ; upon the venture, and had lost it to one who chanced to be 
e his master in address. There lay the limp, huddled figure, 
i supine in highway dirt, the vizard awry over the upper face. 

He had looked too long for his mare. She suddenly broke 
e away sidelong with a snort of fear, boring upon the bit. Why, 
5 indeed, should he interrupt his journey ? What claim had 
t this carrion upon him ? “ The business is none of yours,’* 

whispered that lower nature, neither brute nor man, which 
dwells with each of us. “You are bound, as it is, upon an 
s errand of charity, to which you stand committed in honour ; 

; you delay at risk to others as well as to yourself. A meddler 
l stands to lose. Yonder Thing had friends while living who 
j will not be far away, and who, coming, may misconstrue your 
presence, may decline to accept your explanation. What 
would a coroner’s jury of yokels make of your story ? Your 
\ loitering here courts misconception and can render no service 
I to the dead.” 

Lending an ear to the tempter, whilst half-heartedly curbing 
his mare, Justin had been carried twenty yards down hill, and 
missed but little of pursuing his journey with some loss of 

6 


82 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 

self-esteem — the price which we pay for liberty to fall below 
ourselves. But the habit of a life stepped in, was not to be 
broken by a nervous horse and a conscience in temporary 
abeyance. 

“ ’Fore George/’ he muttered, “ except upon a forced march 
I could never leave a dead native to be crushed by the wheel 
of the next bandi . Stand, mare ! ” He retraced his steps, 
swung down, hitched his rein to a hazel, bent over the corpse, 
shifted the vizard, and curiously scrutinised the livid mouth 
and half-opened eyes. “Not a bad face ... it might have 
been a good face. ’Tis the face of a gentleman, and assuredly 
a young face. Poor lad, what brought ye to it ? ” 

Whilst meditating, he observed that the wound behind the 
ear still oozed. Stripping a glove, he inserted a finger : the 
skull was intact, the ball had glanced. In a moment his 
interest, tepid hitherto, warmed. “ Stunned, possibly ; 
hardly dead. What ? ” for the dim eyes opened fully, the 
lips moved, the corpse was reviving upon his hands. 

Our friend had not followed the wars for half his life without 
picking up some anatomy. He knew, for example, that a 
ricochet off one of the basal prominences is of no great moment 
unless a chief artery be cut. None had been cut here ; the 
fellow was alive, and must be moved. 

But by whom ? Having bound the wound up, Justin 
arose and stood, considering possibilities. Twenty years 
earlier he had lifted from the ground the inert body of a brother- 
in-arms (Travis, no less), shouldered and borne it beyond the 
spatter of matchlock balls ; but such a feat is not easy of 
performance. It is only in fiction that the hero snatches, or 
catches, the unconscious victim from the earth and bears 
him gallantly, yet tenderly, to safety (anything under ten 
miles). Fiat experimentum in corpore amici. Get some one of 
your size to lie flat and passive upon the carpet and do your 
best to get him upon the table, and you shall see. The Major, 
if sinewy, was slight, and no longer in his first youth. This 
wounded rascal was the taller and heavier man, and could 
be depended upon to give no assistance, no, not by the crooking 
of a finger ; he would be mere slack, dead weight. 

“ What to do next ? ” asked Justin, and glanced anxiously 
about him, and then smiled, for help was at hand. A loutish 
country boy was peering through the hazels upon the bank 
above him, a grower in either hand, with a broad, half-scared, 
wholly worried grin upon his round, freckled face. 

“ My lad ” 

“ Oye, Mister ; cornin’,” rejoined the other, and let himself 
down into the road with clumsy agility, scratched his head, 
straddled, and spat upon his hands. ’Twas an Englishman 


MORE OF SANDYLANE HILL 


83 

in the making, and meant work. Justin knew the stock, and 
brightened, awaiting the slow-coming counsel of the native. 

“Us had best brung he along to mother’s/’ said the boy 
at length. “ ’Taint fur,’’ he added encouragingly ; and, 
buttoning up a loose mouth, took the fallen man by the 
shoulders, a post Justin had proposed for himself. 

Twice in the course of the following ten minutes the boy, 
wooden-faced as ever, paused for breath or to improve his hold, 
but once only did he unbutton his lips. 

“ Mother’s bin and got salvation,” said he ; “ ’tis all along 
o’ they Methodies. Pray Gawd it hain’t spy led her ; she 
were a good ’un afore.” 


CHAPTER VI 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE AND GOOD RESOLUTIONS 

The winter sunrise made Royal Ruby of the small diamond 
panes in the tiny lattice ; a splash of colour fell across the face 
of the patient. He frowned in sleep and sneezed faintly, 
opening his eyes thereafter and blinking with that large in- 
certitude which is conceded to a soul which has been for some 
days upon furlough. Who was he ? Where was he ? Upon 
his right a little cone of dust was spinning in the up-draught 
to the chimney ; the back-log glowed dully through its coat 
of ash, which still retained the shape of last night’s billet. 
He was himself, right enough, and this was the old life again 
(he had had his dreams — drear dreams, and had awaited a 
worse awakening). But where was he ? These web-draped 
ceiling beams recalled something — seemed half-familiar. 
The mantleshelf drew his eye, a crock, a grey-beard, its broken 
mouth stopped with a screw of paper, filled him with comfort : 
he not only knew himself, but his whereabouts, and heard 
within an aching head the broken pieces of his consciousness 
getting into contact and rearranging their contiguities, not 
without twinges. 

It was all right, then, so far. That crock gave reassurance. 
He might relax the brain tension. The last impulse given 
to nerves warning them of the need for flight or fight, eased 
off. He felt the bed beneath him was his own for another 
hour, and dozed. 

Later he aroused again. Was it ten minutes after, or upon 
another day ? He knew not, but the sense of comfort re- 
mained. But curiosity was now awake : these arms of his, 
what hampered them ? Fetters ? No, bandages. They had 
let him blood, then ; but what had happened ? He recalled 
nothing, neither scuffling nor sickness. This was the house 
of friends, a familiar house, though its name still eluded him ; 
but the crock was still there. 

A slight movement beside him drew a slow-rolling eye. A 

84 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE 85 

man, an elderly man, a stranger, sat in the oaken settle, where, 
by the look of things, he had sate all night, for he was un- 
shaven and weary-eyed: a grim, elderly fellow, thought 
Repton. (Oh, he was sure of himself by this time, and was 
‘‘Repton ” right enough, as well as several other names and 
nicknames. He had discarded them all, had had his doubts 
of himself, and had sailed dark seas under strange colours 
during that furlough.) Yes, a plain, elderly person, but with 
something of the gentleman about him too ; though what a 
gentleman, save a Gentleman of the Road, should be doing 
at Mother Lea’s, was beyond him. That particular thread 
of wonder snapped, another tingled weakly. “ Tod ! ” he 
muttered, and was extraordinarily surprised at the sound of 
his own voice. 

The stranger turned alertly, but silently, and took in the 
position. “ The boy is all right, sir ; he brought you here. 
Yes, and the horse is seen to ; so, off to sleep again ! ” 

“ I thank you,” murmured the patient, and slept, but had 
given the half of himself away with those three words. 

“ A man of condition,” ruminated Justin. “ Come, there’s 
the more to be made of him.” 

At his next arousing the sick man was clear in his wits, 
and had made a long march towards convalescence. His 
nurse, who in the meantime had washed and shaved himself, 
made shift to do as much for his patient, who, thus obliged, 
grew three years younger at a jump, as your dark man does 
upon emerging from the lather. There is no half-way house 
for our self-respect ; ’tis either beard or clean scrape for us. 
The amateur barber surveyed his work with pardonable pride. 
His trove was improving under his hands ; no prodigal this 
with the scents of the swine about him ; no sallow, pimpled 
jail-escape, but a taking youngster, a pretty fellow, with 
well-formed, unspoilt features, broad, low forehead faintly 
depressed above the springing of the nose as if by recent 
trouble, but with that peculiar supra-orbital development 
which the Greeks gave to their statues of Hermes — a straight, 
fine nose, with the flexible nostrils of the artist, each with its 
well-turned wing, and the small firm mouth that men admire 
and women love, with an inheritance of race upon its short 
upper lip. The face ended well below ; the rounded chin 
came forward boldly, but not aggressively ; the jaw was 
square, but just failed of pugnacity ; ’twas the face for a 
friend ; you would have trusted that boy at sight. Justin 
did, despite his story, known and unknown. 

“ I’ve dropped into the middle of a sad tale, I doubt,” 
thought he, surveying his work as he wiped his razor. “ There 
were mistakes on both sides went to the ravelling of such a 


86 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


skein as this. Is it just possible that I am sent to unravel 
it ? ’Fore God, I’ll stick to the lad and do what a man may 
to set him on his feet again. What else was John Company’s 
big grant made to me for, eh ? Say that I should be getting 
forward with my own affairs ; 'tis but a brace of needles in 
a bottle of hay that I’m after, and I am all as likely to put 
my hand upon ’em at this end of the rick as the other. . . . 
Heaven help me!” ’Twas the man’s daily, nay, his hourly 
prayer. 

Another day’s company-keeping of this chance-met pair 
drew on ; the patient slept much and obeyed silently when 
aroused. Mother Lea and her son Tod pottered in and out 
expectant : their weather-burned, expressionless masks be- 
trayed little, their behaviour much. The nurse effaced 
himself, his charge ruminated, a spiritual crisis in progress. 
Before the afternoon waned he turned his face upon the 
bolster and spoke. 

“ May I ask, my dear sir, to whom I am indebted for all this ? ” 

Justin, in the window-seat, turned from the light and, 
laying down the pocket Testament in which he was reading, 
gave his name and rank ; no more. 

“Ye are reading in a good old book, sir : may I beg you 
to read to me ? I am obliged to you. The tenth of Luke’s 
Gospel, then, if you will, and near the end. * A certain man,’ 
ye know.’’ 

The Major read, his patient listened ; and when he spoke 
next it was after a long pause which the reader had mistaken 
for sleep. “ A good story, sir ; I thank you ; oh, an excellent 
story ; but I think I could tell you as good. That stranger 
whom the other put himself about to serve was a plain, honest 
journeyman ; we know nothing to his discredit, anyway. 
The good fellow paid for his nursing, and he did well, for an 
honest man is one picked out of ten thousand, as the play 
has it. But what shall we say of a gentleman who lifts a 
dying rogue from the rut and nurses him with his own hands ? ” 

“ Hush, my lad ; you are exciting yourself. Your head ” 

“ Rings sound again, sir, and by your leave, will lie the 
easier after I’ve told ye my story.’’ He told some of it, Justin 
nodding sympathetically. 

“ I am a blackguard and a footpad, Major Justin ; let us 
start fair.” 

“ And, before that ? ” 

“ Nay, I’ll not extenuate. You see what I am.” 

“ So much is evident — was evident. Come, sir, you have 
told me nothing that I did not know. Regard me as your 
doctor, not your farrier,” he smiled encouragingly. “ I can 
see the symptoms without your help, but need your help for 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE 87 

their history. How did this disease begin ? And what has 
been its courses ? In a word, what brought ye to this ? ” 

“ Temper. I was up at Oxford, at Christ Church, as servitor 
(’tis a dog’s life, but let that pass). A gentleman commoner 
insulted me ; I demanded satisfaction ; he passed my cartel 
to his tutor ; the dons were scandalised ; I was sent down.” 

The curt, unemotional terms of the recital did not deceive 
Justin ; some tragedy lay behind. He waited ; it came. 

“ It hit me somewhat hard, for I’ve no backers. My 
mother dead ; of two aunts one doing more than her share, 
and one — well, an old cat among her cats. Yes ; it fell in- 
conveniently for a man in his fourth year just going up for 
his degree.” Again the sick man stopped, it might be to 
command his voice. Presently he resumed : “You have been 
young, sir. Meeting my man in Tom Quad the day I went 
down, my temper got the better of me ; I beat him hand- 
somely.” There was a spark of very human satisfaction in 
the youth’s eye ; in a moment it was gone. “ That put the 
fat upon the fire. A warrant was out for me. I had to look 
to myself. What was a fellow to do ? I was hungry enough 
before night, I assure ye. ‘ I could not dig, to beg I was 
ashamed.’ It presently came to — this. And now, sir, I 
think ye know the worst of me.” 

“ My lad, I am honoured by your confidence. It pleases 
me more than . . . hum, hum . . . And, now, what next ? 

. . . You would hardly have gone so far as this with me 
unless ye had something of a purpose, or plan (what ye 
will) . . . for amendment, I mean. Tell me no more than ye 
wish ; but ye may like to hear from the lips of an old fellow 
(as I suppose ye would call me) that a bad start is not seldom 
well retrieved. I have seen life. I could tell ye of many a 
career begun better and ended worse ; and on t’other hand, 
of a friend of my own ” (Old John Chisholm’s name came to 
the front as he spoke, but was ordered to the rear), “ who 
began worse, but is now a person of large means and excellent 
consideration. Ye seem weary of your way of life.” 

“ Both weary and ashamed, sir. What ye say heartens me 
to make the attempt. Lying here, I have thought it out. It 
would appear that Almighty God, for reasons of His own, has 
given me back my life. (By the plaister at the back of my 
head ’twould seem to have been a near thing.) I swear to 
ye I am not worth the consideration, but He thinks otherwise ; 
has a better opinion of me, we’ll say. After all, He made me. 
He knows. The least I can do is to justify His preference. 

You see with me ? Naturally. Well, then ” a long 

pause, “I am His man# henceforth.” Another long pause. 
“ First, for restitution. Luckily I am but a beginner at this 


88 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


devil’s trade, and can lay my hand upon those whom I’ve 
robbed. You smile ? But I’ve kept tally. They shall be 
repaid — as I can manage.” 

Justin’s eyes shone, but he held his peace. The calm as- 
surance of this youngster took him : he doubted his ultimate 
success no more than his penitence. 

“ But, sir, my last crime was serious. Tell me, when ye 
stripped me was there no shamoy belt upon me ? None ? Then 
’twas taken from me as I lay on the road. A pity, for I had 
promised myself . . . But, things might have been worse, 
the best are still under my hand ” — his eyes turned to the 
mantelshelf. “ Might I ask . . . would ye be so good as 
to reach down that crock, so, . . . and to empty it upon the 
quilt ? I thank you.” 

A handful of many-coloured stones slid clicking forth, such 
as Justin, who since his trusteeship had made acquaintance 
with the uncut gems of the Orient, had never seen before. 
These, as he guessed, were antiques, valuable not so much for 
their material, nor for their size — although most were large — 
as by reason of their artistry and rarity. There by his hand 
lay one which he could vaguely appraise, an inch-broad 
plasma, its grass-green translucency miraculously sculptured 
into the semblance of a sleeping nereid. Most were camei, 
pale, banded chalcedonies, or crimson-and-white sardonyxes, 
agates, carnelians, and sards, all of which seemed to have been 
subjected to some process which had rendered them plastic 
as gum, or tender as cheese, and to have thus lent themselves 
to the delicate tooling of Greek fingers before resuming their 
native hardness. The sick man touched one and another, 
frowning perplexedly. 

“ Whoever has lost these will be missing them badly,” 
suggested Justin. 

“ From what I have heard of him I should say so too, nor 
will he be satisfied with the return of these. There were twice 
as many more in that belt of which I was robbed. Robbed ! ” 
he laughed softly, “ Quis tulerit Gracchos ? — You must know 
that these, and the rest, are the property of the father of the 
gentleman commoner of whom I spoke. They were stolen 
from him by his domestic chaplain, an old school-fellow of 
mine — no, not a friend by any means, nor colleague (I 
have worked single-handed). I had no finger in the business. 
As for my knowing of it, my lord advertised his loss England 
over ; never was such hue and cry, or such rewards. That 
was a month ago ; my part came later, yesterday was it ? — 
or a week since ? How long have ye had me here ? I ran 
into my old enemy and relieved him of his brush. (No 
treason in that, sir. He was a brute to us lower boys at Shrews* 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE 


89 

bury ; we warned him when he went down we would be even 
with him some day.) As I was saying, I stripped him of his 
spoils. ’Twas delicious ; you would have laughed yourself, 
sir — the deplorable figure he cut ! ” The bed shook to the 
sick man’s silent mirth. “ In my own mind I proposed to 
hold these things to ransom, to get some of my own back upon 
them, you understand.” 

“ Hard upon the father, sir.” 

“So I can see now. At the time I said, ‘ All in the family.* 
But, how to return ’em ? These without the rest ? My 
Lord may refuse to accept my explanations, eh ? ” 

“ May I ask his name ? ‘ Lord Duddingstone ? ’ What, 

the Vice-Chairman of the East India Company ? I won- 
der ...” the Major fell into a brown study, from which he 
presently emerged. “ It occurs to me that I might be of service 
to both sides in this. Oh, I am known to your man, in a way. 
I think he would at least give you a patient hearing whilst 
in my company.” 

“ Hush ! ” murmured Repton softly, lifting a warning 
finger, his face grown keen as a knife. The Major cocked a 
campaigner’s ear, for the delicate wintry silence which normally 
lay around their retreat was disturbed by a new voice. 

“ No, dame, I’ll stand it no longer. Ye shall not fob me off 

with a Listen to me, I say ! Where are your manners ? 

I’d overlook your absence from church if ye’d give me your 
word that ye’d go nowhere else. But to have people of mine 
following these Ranters ! Blind me, ’tis past bearing ! What 
am I here for ? Tell me that ? ” 

“ For your tithe, as I’e alius heerd, passon.” 

“ Woman, I am set for the guidance of this parish.” 

“ Something of a blind guide at times, eh, sir, bean’t ye ? ” 

“ We’re human, dame, and have each of us his faults. You, 
I perceive, have added to your old ones this new methodistical 
vice of picking holes in the coats of your betters. Not that I 
profess myself perfect, Heaven forbid ! Often and often 
I have told you and the rest, ‘ Don’t ye do as I do ; do as I 
say.’ ” 

“ Ay, ay, sir, the old story of the handy-post, showing 
of the way but ne’er follering of it ! But, beggin’ of your 
pardon, sir ” 

“ So ye ought, dame, and not for your impertinence only. 
’Tis schism, ye have fallen into ; d’ye hear ? ” 

“ La, passon, they’ve bin a-foolin’ on ye again. I ain’t 
fell inter nary ditch, wet nor dry, since I found salvation and 
giv’ up going to the Griffin. Do that woman’s ale be too 
strong for your head to-day, sir ? There be the same chair 
inside as you have slep’ it off in afore. Step in and welcome.” 


90 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


“ Tchar ! But, these new friends of yours, these Ranters, 
what have ye learnt of them ? ” asked the other, finding the 
homely creature his overmatch at a mutual inspection of 
personal frailties. 

“ Why, sir, afore I went with they People of God, as you 
calls Ranters, I was that ign’ant . . . I was that ign’ant . . . ” 
(searching Heaven and earth for a similitude) “ I was as 
ign’ant as what you be now ! ” 

“ That is enough ! And don’t think you’ve done with me. 
Woman, I know that about ye as might bring ye to the stocks, 
ay, and to the jail, if not to the gallows. ’Tis reported of ye 
that ye harbour disorderly characters and suspected persons. 
Aha ! that touches ye, does it ? I’d hate to lay an information 
against a parishioner, or to bring trouble into my parish. I’m 
not one to go out of my way to help the exciseman. The 
King may do his own business, and I’ll do mine. I know 
that an honest widow-woman must live, and need not in a 
general way ask too closely who knocks late for a bed, nor 
about his horse, nor where he came from, nor whom he met 
by the way. But this Methodism is another guess matter, 
and I must do my duty and stand by the law, dame. A sus- 
pected person is what they call your lodger.” 

“ Then, they as calls him so calls him out of his name, 
passon. As an honest, God-fearin’, Christ’n woman, I’ll take 
my Bible-oath as there bean’t one breath o’ s’spicion about 
ary person as I’ve had on my place this two year.” 

“ Humph ! ” growled the clergyman, and stumped away. 

“ S’spicion, indeed ! I never had none ; ’twere certainty ! ” 
said the housewife beneath her breath as she clattered off 
upon her clogs. 

The eyes of the listeners met ; the roguish gleam in Repton’s 
faded to a steady gravity ; he arose upon his elbow, collected 
his breath and made essay of his strength. Holding by the 
newell of the settle that filled one side of the hearth, he steadied 
himself with a swimming head. 

“ There spoke Mother Church, sir. I know the weight of 
her hand ; ’tis ‘ miching malecho, which means mischief.’ 
I must be off.” He reached for his clothes. 

Nor too soon. Three hours later the taciturn, wooden- 
faced Tod opened the door and led in from the yard naught 
less than Repton’s horse, bitted and saddled. The good 
beast, fat and in excellent case, got his master’s wind and 
blew him a kiss and a low nasal murmur of friendly recognition 
before submitting to be led past his couch and so on through 
an inner door into a narrow and almost dark lean-to closet 
adjoining — a place wherein he could hardly lift his head nor 
could think of turning himself about, but which possessed 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE 


9i 


the compensating advantage, shared with the pigeon-cote and 
draw-well, of being one of the three last places in the parish 
where one would look for a horse. 

“ As near as all that ? ” inquired the invalid of the boy 
upon his reappearance. 

‘ They be all round the house, sir. . . . Didn’t see us come 
in, I reckons. ’Tother nag may speak for herself. But 
where be I to put you, sir ? ” 

“ Don’t give a thought to such a trifle ; I’m not caught yet 
by a lot. J ust you get out of this, my good Tod, and be looking 
the young innocent ye are.” 

The lad grinned and slouched forth, hands in pockets. 
Justin arose and moved to the window. A man was in the act 
of entering the stable ; two others were approaching the house. 
He knew their sort. He turned him about : the room was 
empty ; not a latch had clicked, but his patient was gone, 
silent and light as a fox. 

The campaigner’s eye swept the apartment, but found no 
clue to his man’s hiding-place, nor, what was at least as 
important, any hint that another than himself had used the 
room since a week. He drew easier breath : this thing might 
yet go well. “ Attack’s the word ; we offer battle,” said he 
smiling to himself ; and opening the door to the yard, stepped 
forth sedately, leaving it wide behind him. 

The number of visitors had increased. The Major, hand in 
fob, gazed serenely over the heads of three catchpoles and 
caught the eye of the parson behind them. 

“ Good-day to your reverence ! . . . And, what can I do 
for you ? And what, may I ask, is your man doing with 
my mare ? ” 

The parson and his constables finding themselves accosted 
by an unarmed middle-aged personage of a most peaceable 
address, whose every word and gesture bespoke breeding and 
the assurance engendered by a good conscience, changed 
countenance and fell to excusing themselves. 

“ Put her in again, my lad,” said Justin, addressing the 
fellow who had led his beast from her stall. “Yes, yes, ... I 
accept your apologies : your duties are your excuse. I myself 
am a soldier and understand. Insufficient information is 
apt to lead to mistakes. For your comfort, Master Con- 
stable ” he produced his commission. “ Justin, you 

see, is my name, lately landed from the Indies, where I was 
known as Major of the Thirty-ninth. You are pleased to be 
satisfied ? I thank you. Be so good as to drink this to His 
Majesty’s health, and to mine too, if you will. I wish you 
all a good-day.” He turned without another word or greeting 
to the clergyman, who could not conceal his chagrin, and 


92 THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 

slowly retraced his steps towards the house, his hand again 
in his fob. 

“ But, but, he may be, all the same,” stuttered the parson 
in his own defence, in reply to the mute reproach of the 
catchpole’s eye. (To have been fetched upon this fool’s 
errand !) 

“ Gurrh ! What be the sense o’ talkin’ ? All we’ve got to 
go by is a brown blood gelding ; the mare’s a roan Norfolk. 
While as for the man, the ‘ Scholard’s ’ a youngish bloke, six 
foot in his stockings. That the ‘ Scholard ’ ? If you’ll take 
my humble advice, Mr. Parson, you’ll be sort of gently gettin’ 
along home and settin’ to at your Sunday’s sermon. That's 
what you be fit for.” The broad shoulders arose in disgust. 

Justin from the open doorway watched the invaders off 
the premises. 

“ Are they gone, sir ? ” the low, musical, laughing tones 
came down the chimney. It appeared that his patient, 
having mounted the hearth-side settle, had stepped up into 
the wide flue, and now was in temporary eclipse, his feet 
planted securely upon the staple of the roasting-jack. 

Young Repton’s reformation stood the test of a rapid 
convalescence. The lad was as hard as a nail and could sit 
his horse within a week, but there was no looking back. 
Those hot fever dreams had burnt deep. The man was a 
changed creature and on fire with a purpose. He had arisen 
from that cottage pallet-bed with the conviction that a life 
had been remitted to him, and that that life was no longer 
his own, but was owed to a Higher Power. 

How was it to be spent ? 

Justin made no suggestions, well content to listen and let 
the leaven work. They were riding south together. 

“You are monstrous good to lay aside your business for 
me like this, Major ; I dare swear ’tis more important than 
mine, but . . . I’ll not pretend that I’m not depending upon 
you. You see, with me ’tis a commission or nothing. I’ll 
confess to shrinking from the ranks, yet, God knows it may 
come to. . . .In peace time a fellow without a name gets no 
further than the anteroom : but, with you, and this state of 
things across the herring-pond ” 

“ And with France upon our backs now ” 

“ Yes, and Spain talking big, I may get a colour, if not a 
cornet. I’m good for nothing else,” playing with his rein. 

“ Major, I’ve not told ye my name yet ; to know it may cause 
ye embarrassment until I’ve my pardon. ‘ Rep ton ’ will do as 
well as another ; ’tis a genteel one, and I come of good stock. 
My poor father, whom I’ve no clear recollection of, was a 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE 


93 

soldier. I fear he made mistakes ; it runs in the blood. Yes, 
fit for nought else ; besides, I’m due to my King.” 

“ 1 fi ave seen some service myself,” said Justin, with an old 
campaigner’s reticence. “ I would as soon see ye started on a 
civil profession. What say ye to the Church, now, or the 
Law ? ” 

The youngster’s face fell. “ I’m out of the first, sir, thank 
God. Had ye seen how our Heads drank and carried on at 
Oxford ye’d ne’er set foot in a church again. We’ve six 
Archbishops in these Islands ; His Grace of York I know 
nothing for or against, nor of Armagh, Tuam and Cashel. 
Stone, His Grace of Dublin, is afour-bottle man and the hardest 
liver out, save Lord Northington, whilst Canterbury’s Sunday 
routs at Lambeth were public scandal until the King stopped 
’em. No, thank ye ! Neither Church nor Bar for me, sir.” 

War was in the air. Men talked it at table and in the 
inn-yards, yokels thrashing in the dusty wayside barns laid 
flail down and leaned across the half-door asking for news. 
Brown-faced women at the cross-roads were patiently eager : 
they had sons in ’Mericky, sons who had sailed with Howe, 
and never a word had come since. 

The unnatural and wounding wickedness of the Colonists 
filled every heart with a pained anger. These Virginians, for 
whom we had shed our blood and treasure in two hard-fought 
campaigns, had turned against us. ’Twas shameful ! What 
was more, they could fight. The stay-at-home English had 
always understood that in some obscure manner our kin 
across the sea had lost the peculiarly British inheritance of 
pugnacity ; had hoed it into the rich soil with their tobaccos, 
or distilled it out of themselves with their rums. “ Colonials 
can’t fight,” was a proverb ; every old soldier who had served 
under Braddock would tell you as much over his mug of beer. 
But events were drumming another tune now. We were 
wrong, as usual. 

And so much of this fighting was of a new and un-English 
sort. Ambuscades and night attacks, scufflings in covert 
like poacher and keeper. In other fields we had known whom 
we fought and seen our foes’ faces. You met a Frenchman 
and broke his head. In the Carolinas it was a messy job. 
Farmers came snivelling to headquarters with a poor mouth, 
tales of wrong and damage from rebels, beseeching arms to 
defend the plantation, or to cover the red-coats’ communica- 
tions ; you lent a musket, and next moment the “ Loyalist ” 
had skipped behind a tree and was for putting a ball 
through your gizzard. 

Hence the war had grown excessively unpopular, and 
volunteers proportionately scarce. Even the country gentry 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


94 

hung back. The quality of the commissioned officers had 
deteriorated, and a lusty youngster of good address and 
appearance, well backed by a gentleman of influence with a 
service record of his own, might feel pretty sure of getting his 
colour without too many questions asked. 


" You must be wondering, sir, how I dare to ride the turn- 
pike.” The Major admitted as much. “ ’Tis like this, sir ; if 
there be a warrant out for me, there were never two descrip- 
tions that tallied. I had seen that most of the poor fellows 
who took to the road were betrayed by their women, so I 
lived quietly ; or they betrayed themselves when in liquor, 
so I drank small beer. Or, again, they were known by the 
horses they rode, for you cannot disguise a beast’s action, and 
every man can carry the points of a horse in his eye ; so what 
did I ? I robbed on foot, and masked, and chiefly by night, 
but shifted my pitch openly by day, and on horseback, giving 
out that I was a china-ware painter (and I have put in a week 
or two at that art between-whiles, at Burslem and Worcester). 
I do assure ye I have rid beside the officer who was out for me, 
and have discussed my probable identity and movements. 
Oh, 'twas a life ! ” He smote his thigh with a laugh. “ May 
God forgive me ! ” 

The fit passed in a moment. The youth’s chin sank upon 
his breast as he rode, his eyes filled and closed tightly. When 
he opened them again it was to look with a sort of wistful 
wonder upon an elderly horseman who was passing (’Twas 
beside the ruined cross that stands in the Horse-fair in Ban- 
bury). The man was spare, fresh-coloured, and high-featured, 
a cleric by his mode, and wearing his own white hair as long 
as many a woman’s. He had laid his rein upon his beast’s 
withers and read in a book as he rode. 

” Now, sir,” said Repton, when this singular figure had 
passed beyond ear-shot, “ there is a man for you, whom I 
could have understood believing in so sudden a change of 
heart as I have professed ; but, in yourself, who have seen 
the world, such credulity surprises me and beats me down.” 

“ And who may this acquaintance of yours be ? ” 

“ That is a Mr. John Wesley, The Reverend John Wesley, I 
suppose one may call him, for they say he is in orders ; he 
was at Lincoln College before my time ; oh, a fanatic, if 
you like, but a marvellous man.” 

“ I never heard the name,” replied Justin; “ but, then, as 
you know, I am come back to a new world. But to return to 
what you are saying. Why should you suppose that such as 
I should think scorn of a man for a sudden change of front. 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE 


95 

or have doubt as to his staunchness ? We see many strange 
things upon active service. I, myself, have witnessed a 
harder heart than your own soften more suddenly. Ay, my 
lad ! ’Twas upon ship-board, in the midst of an action between 
the frigate in which I came home and a French pirate in the 
Mozambique Channel. The man I am to tell you of was a petty 
officer of some sort, a master gunner as I think, a navigator at 
least (more than a boatswain or quartermaster) . I believe he 
had lost some command in the merchant service before shipping 
in the Company’s Marine. As I recollect, he commanded the 
after-battery, and would lay each gun with his own hands ; 
and this was the saving of us, for, owing, as our captain said 
afterward, to the foulness of our bottom, and the superiority 
of our enemy’s model, we were raked early in the action through 
hanging too long in stays, and by chance lost the captains 
of four guns.” 

“ That sounds bad for a frigate, sir.” 

“ It might have been worse than bad : the men were dis- 
couraged. They say one chain-shot took off all the four as 
they stood, match in hand, waiting for their sights to come 
on. But this man that I am telling ye of was of such good- 
will and activity, that as I saw myself, he was extraordinarily 
serviceable, springing from gun to gun as each was sponged out 
and recharged, laying and firing with such judgement and luck 
that he presently shot away the enemy’s fore-top mast, which 
brought him to the wind and gave us leisure to refit, for we 
had a main-yard of our own that needed fishing.” 

“ I’m no seaman, sir, but it sounds as if you were now upon 
an equality. Could you not have improved the advantage ? ” 

“ Our captain thought to have done so. Whilst the French 
were clearing the raffle forward, our men got sail upon us and 
attempted to get to closer quarters. (Did I say that the 
enemy had won the weather-gage after raking us ?) Our 
after-battery being put out of action we had nought to answer 
him but our forward battery — bow-chasers, I fancy they 
called ’em — and to this part of the ship our master-gunner 
was bid that we might have the advantage of his skill. I went 
with him, there being nought doing abaft at the moment, and 
admired at the fellow’s cool hardihood as much as ever I admired 
at anything in my life. Having but five pieces wherewith to 
reply to the fire of more than twice as many, he was hard put 
to it to keep his guns’ crews to their stations : the casualties 
were heavy, and the poor Jacks did not stand to their work 
as stoutly as perhaps they had done had they been better 
treated and rationed before the action. In the result the 
officers had to man the guns, the actual laying and firing they 
had the sense to leave to their master-gunner (Furley was his 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


96 

name, now that I think on’t). This man, though wounded 
twice by splinters, made the best practice that ever I watched, 
whether ashore or afloat, and fairly beat the Frenchmen from 
their guns; for when we had got to point-blank range, say, 
as far from her as yonder tree, the letter-of-marque, or pirate, 
was for making off. She had the legs of us, but must pass 
for a few moments under our broadside, and there was a 
general expectation that our skilled gunner would improve 
his opportunity. What think you ? When the chase ceased 
firing (for her guns, save a stern-chaser or two, no longer 
bore) our champion raised his hat to her and bade her God- 
speed ! ” 

“You don’t say so ! Was he hit about the head, sir, or 
faint ? ” 

“ Neither. He professed himself no longer v a fighting man ; 
and despite threats and entreaties walked aft to his former 
station and, sitting down upon the carriage of an overturned 
gun, covered his face with his hands. Without him we could 
do but little ; in another minute our shot was falling wide. 
The action was over.’’ 

“ What excuse had he to offer ? ’’ 

“ Merely that he had at that moment heard a secret Voice 
forbid him to take the lives of fleeing enemies. Later he 
went farther, and professed himself a Quaker. His captain 
was naturally enraged, for he was counting upon making prize 
of the Frenchman, and there was highish talk of trying him for 
mutiny, keel -hauling him, and I know not what, but the fellow’s 
services had been so conspicuous, and his conduct up to a 
point so meritorious, that we all besought his commander to 
be content with reducing his rating. He lost his berth and 
was sent to mess with the waisters for the rest of the voyage, 
but, as I found by speaking to him upon his conduct, he was 
entirely satisfied and at peace with himself over his refusal 
of duty ; and from being one of the rudest and foulest-mouthed 
of the ship’s company, yes, and the most brutal to inferiors, 
he had grown all in that moment the most civil and helpful. 
’Twas a marvel : we all remarked upon it.’’ 

“A brave fellow that, sir. I should like well to meet with 
him, and the more so if, as ye say, his right-about-face gave 
ye warrant to believe in mine.’’ 

The Banbury road was free to Repton, but since Carfax 
might easily recognise the ex-servitor of Christ Church, a detour 
seemed advisable. Upon the high ground of Little Moor the 
youth turned in his saddle and gazed long and sadly upon 
the city wherein he had striven so unavailingly and suffered 
so keenly. 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE 


97 


“ There is one man in Oxford whom I would wish to see 
again ; a watchmaker and lapidary, an ingenious tradesman, 
but too honest to make money. He is a Quaker, and must 
have known of my performances ; indeed I told him how 
things stood with me, yet he lent me five guineas at my 
need ; yes, without security or reasonable prospect of repay- 
ment. A good heart ! ” 

“ Him ye shall repay the first, my lad,” said the Major. 

Riding such stages as Repton’s head could stand, they put 
up at country quarters, and were thrown at times into rough 
company, which the Major handled with a discriminating tact 
admired by his companion. He could be prompt, too, on 
occasion ; and when his pacific bearing towards a drunken 
ostler was misconstrued, the taller fellow was all along upon 
his face in a trice, whilst the small, cool stranger, with a knee 
between the aggressor’s shoulder-blades, and one back-twisted 
wrist in chancery, held him down, vociferous but unhurt, 
until a constable could be fetched. 

With others he dealt upon other lines, but with equal success. 

At Aylesbury the Lion was full, and every room en- 
gaged, for a fight was afoot for the morrow, and the two 
friends must needs share a harness-room fire with a third 
traveller, a bull-faced, bull-voiced person, with just a smack 
of the sea about him, who alternately smoked and sang 
snatches of psalms, being, as was evident, in high good humour 
with himself. 

“ Yea, I hate run through a troop ... a troop, 

And by my God have I leapt over a wall! Selah 1 ” 

Whiff, whiff, whiff. 

The weary travellers were just dropping off when the 
fellow trolled forth again : 

“ He teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight, 

So that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms ! 

(One in the eye for they Neatsfooters !) ” Whiff, whiff. 

“My good sir,” said Justin, blinking and smiling, “you 
are in excellent voice, but we would beg of you to let us 
sleep.” 

“Sir,” replied the other sententiously, “what says the 
apostle ? ‘ Is any merry , let him sing psalms ’ ; and I am 

merry ! ” whiff . . . whf. . . . “ ‘ Thou makest my feet like 
hinds' feet ! ’ (in a figure) ” pushing home a toppling bavin 
with a broad-toed sea-boot. “ I don’t mind your sleeping ; 
why should you mind my singing ? ” 

Here Repton opened his eyes and exchanged weary smiles 

7 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


98 

with his friend, who had made up his mind that here was a 
fish that must be played. 

“As to singing, no, sir. We admire music, for ye know, 
! The man that hath no music in his soul Is meet for treasons, 
strategems, and spoils * — yet ” 

“ It jingles well, but,” wagging a ponderous head, “ I 
couldn’t lay finger to the passage. Not in the Apocrypha by 
any chance ? I owns to bein’ weak there ; elsewhere in the 
Book I be bad to beat. You two be smilin’ — 'tis plain ye be 
in high sperrits, and, as I be in the same, I’ll tell ye my 
circumstances, and ye shall rejoice with me (as ’tis written), 
then we’ll praise the Lord and turn in.” 

“ Excellent ! ” replied the Major, nudging Repton’s 
impatience. “ Give us your story first and your leave to 
sleep after.” And the big fellow, knocking the dottel out of 
his pipe, settled himself in his chair to begin. 

“ Sirs, ye be gentlemen as any man can see ; I be Zabulon 
Sweetapple, the Lord’s servant, and the last, the very last, 

of the Anointers. Yes ” in reply to Justin’s questioning 

glance at his stained blue coat and tarnished brass buttons, 
“ that’s tar on the skirt, for a sailor I be, though born here- 
abouts, for Chinnor is my native, but, bred to the sea not- 
withstanding, for my Verse was such as my dad could do no 
else — Genesis, forty, thirteen, ‘ Zabulon shall dwell at the haven 
of the sea, and he shall be a haven of ships.' And in havens 
and in ships I does abide as a rule, though happenin’ out of 
a berth through havin’ property to dispoge of. 

“ ’Twere like this. When I left home as a younker, we 
Anointers was still a strongish Cause, and had Tents of 
Blessing all over the Chilterns — Wendover, Ellesborough, 
Monks Risborough, Watlington, etcetery ; but whiles I was in 
the Indies they falls out among theirselves, seemin’ly. ’Twas 
the nature and quality of the ile. One says Neatsfoot ; 
’tother said Train ; so they sorter splits up and diwides the 
Tents among ’em ; and bimeby them muckin’ Neatsfooters 
goes and jines the Latter-day Samaritans.” The narrator 
spat upon the back-log in a disgust too deep for articulate 
expression. 

“ But, praise the Lord, my old dad stouted it out to the 
last. Tarr’ble bad he wor when I came home three weeks 
back. Seems as if he had no insides, like, and could git no 
ease. I ’n’inted him and ’n’inted him pretty well all over, 
but the pains were something crool. So the neighbours they 
fetches doctor, and he come and stand in the door, a-holdin’ 
of his nose (the moment I sets eyes on him I knows there 
was no good in he). ‘ What have you been a-doing to the 
patient ? * sez he, * ’N’inting him with the ile o’ blessing/ 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE 


99 


sez I. ‘ Then you’ll foment all that off of him and foomigate 
this cottage afore I looks at him,’ sez he. And nat ’rally I 
speaks up, and off he goes. But the women they cuts arter 
him and comes back saying we was to poultice father wi’ 
salt of an almanac and puppy-heads.* We couldn’t find no 
almanac, but we laid hands on a Robin Hood and Little John , 
and biled he down with Farmer Winnick’s puppies and clapped 
the mess on, but it done not a mossel o’ good. 

“You had a-thought, mebbe, as how father was through 
with his speeretool experiences, but norrabit. The better 
the stuff the more it’ll stand. Parson comes along and he 
stands out half acrost the lane, same as father and the ’hull 
lot on us had got the pest, and he ups and sez, sez he, ‘ Sweet- 
apple, arter pizenin’ my parish for nine-and-twenty year, 
your time’s come. Hell is gapin’ for ye. Now, for the last 
time, will ye repent and be reconciled to the Church afore 
’tis too late ? ’ 

“ ‘ Oon’t,’ sez father; * Christ’s my guide. Hallelujah ! ’ 

“ ‘ Then I oon’t bury ye,’ sez parson. 

“ * God’s will be done,’ sez father, kinder thoughtful-like, 
* But, I shall stink.’ 

“ And off goes parson. 

“So he died, a fortnit back, did father. The werry last of 
the true line of the Old Anointer elders he were, and before 
he went to Glory he ’n’inted me in his place, and left me the 
last o’ the Tents, the one as fell to his share at the discor- 
ruption. Just a double cottage gutted and seated, with a 
parcel of land, but handy, being at cross-roads. 

“ Them Samaritans comes arter it, but I sez: * You hain’t 
got the right savour about ye.’ (A true anointer can be winded 
acrost a eight-acre field. Why, when my old dad have bin on 
his rounds with his Vial o’ Blessing in his coat-tail pocket, 
I’ve known Squire Ashcroft’s foot beagles leave the line of a 
hare to run hisn. Ah, yes, Train is the true stuff, what the 
Apostles used of old ; Neatsfoot hain’t no virtue, no more’n 
a shotten herrin’.) 

“ So they sends me one Farmer Winnick, an elder o’ theirs, 
and he says, sez he : ' Young man, p’raps you’ll put a rizzon- 
able price upon that empty messuage o’ yourn, for,’ sez he, * my 
garden runs down to the fence, and I’d like to throw it into 
my garden.’ 

“ ‘ Get thee behind me, Ahab,’ sez I. * The Lord forbid that I 
should sell the inheritance of my fathers for a garden of 
yerbs.’ But he made out as he was merely referring to the 
burying-ground : the premises might stand empty. 

* Sal Ammoniac and Poppy-heads ? 


IOO 


THE CHANCES OF THE ROAD 


“ ‘ Yes,’ says I, ‘ when your Neatsfooters ain’t holdin’ forth 
and carryin’ on in ’em. This house hev bin called a house 
of prayer, but ye would make it a den of thieves ! ’ ” 

“You were a trifle severe upon a prospective customer, 
sir,” remarked Repton, interested in spite of weariness. 

“ Knew me man, sir. He jest smiled and bid me forty-five 
pound. ‘ Sell my Tent o’ Blessing for forty-five ? ’ sez I, 

‘ Never ! not a groat under fifty.’ (But, oh, to think of 
partin’ with a place o’ washup, wheer often as a child I’ve 
set and sweated with dumb terror whilst Elder Juggins held 
forth upon the Pit o’ Yell. Yearnest he wor, ay, that yearnest 
— when the Power were upon him and a drop o’ good yale 
inside ’um. Fact, if you’ll believe me, sirs, when he come 
to the opening of the seventh seal I’ve sin the spittle fly the 
length o’ this here room.” 

“ But, the cottage, man,” cried Repton, diverted but 
yawning. 

“Ah, yes, about that Tent : it were the Thursday night 
as we parted, and this evening he were round again. ‘ Young 
man,’ sez he, ‘ your prayers is heard. I lain the matter afore 
the Master, and He sez : “ Go thou and give that pore strayed 
sheep the fifty pound as he axes, for he warnts it wuss nor 
thou.” So, here ’tbe.’ * But,’ sez I, ‘ did the Lord tell ye 
to do that — ezackly that, Mister Winnick ? For, to tell you 
the trewth, you s ’prise me. I never did hear yet as the Lord 
sent His servants on fools’ errands, and it stands to reason 
He must ha’ known as how I sold my Tent to Mr. Wesley 
half an hour arter you refuged it.’ 

“ So here I be with fifty pound in hand, a talent as you 
might say, and no way wisible o’ bein’ faithful in a few 
things and doing a bit o’ business with it. This here fight, 
you’ll say — well, I comes along here thinkin’ there might be 
a call for me to-morrow (I have a gift of bone-setting), and I 
jest run my hand over the Buckinghamshire champion (the 
Londoner I know the reach of). This chap is big enough and 
quick enough if so be he’ll fight on the square, which is just 
the p’int. No, I puts not a pound on him. But if my old 
mate, Tom Furley, was a-going to step inter the ring to- 
morrow, blest if I wouldn’t back him for all the Tent made. 
A rare man is Tom, a sailorman same as I be, and has gone 
foreign. So, sirs, I’m back to the sea again, but not till 
April be out.” 

“ Weather ? ” hazarded Repton, amused by the fellow’s 
garrulity. 

“No, sir, ’tis. not fair weather I’d wait ashore for, but for 
the Mile-Endium, what is due then, as I make it. Failin’ 
that, I'm for a mate’s berth. . . . And, now," genel’men, 


MOTHER LEA’S COTTAGE ioi 

if you’ll escuse me, I’ll beg ye not to keep me awake no 
longer.” 

It was on the day’s riding after this episode that the 
Major closed a long silent mile by slapping his thigh. “ Fur- 
ley ! ” said he, “ Tom Furley ! I knew I had heard the 
name, and it comes to me. That queer fish last night that 
talked so long and smelt as of train-oil, must have known 
the master-gunner I told ye of in his unregenerate days.” 

“ Well, sir,” said Repton, “ saint or sinner, he seems to 
have been all of a piece ; for ’tis a point in a man’s favour to 
fight on the square.” 


BOOK III 

THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


CHAPTER I 

THE HOME-COMING OF SUSAN 

T HE December day was far spent when the Chester stage 
drew in under the archway of Blossom’s Inn, Lawrence 
Lane, Cheapside. Sue, weary as she was, and shaken by the 
jar of the cobbles during the last two miles of the journey, 
was aroused to curiosity by the vivid life of such a city as 
she had never conceived of as possible. She hardly heard, for 
the rattle of the stones, the dry advice offered to her, and to 
the other lady passenger, by the dean who had ridden inside 
since Lichfield, nor the “ Oh, las ! ” and “ Did ye evers ? ” 
thrown off by the woman at her side, a person in widow’s 
weeds, still young and fresh-looking, the latest addition to 
their company, who had got in at St. Albans. What part of 
her mind the girl could disentangle from the distracting lights 
and cries, the driving, hurrying crowds, the horses’ heads at 
the window, and the occasional grinding of wheel against 
wheel, was engrossed by the low-pitched, almost tender 
farewells breathed into her ear by the Irishman when an 
interval of darker street permitted the confidence. His 
manner had grown strangely friendly upon this, the last day 
of their journey. She had never known the like from one of 
his sex, and whether she would or no, the woman’s lore, the 
mother-wisdom, of her hostess of the Griffin, put resolutely 
and even hotly away so often, recurred and found lodgement 
in her little bosom. All unsuspected by herself, her imagina- 
tion had been fed by carefully graduated advances, the intru- 
sions of a masculine influence against which she had at first 
arisen with instinctive virginal repulsion. Later she had 


102 


THE HOME-COMING OF SUSAN 


103 

contended less strongly, and with flutterings of advance and 
recoil had listened and had given ground ; yet, at whiles 
she was displeased with her eyes and her ears for seeing and 
hearing, and upbraided her blameless self by night for small 
civilities conceded during the day’s journey ; some traitorous, 
ancestral voice meanwhile within her excusing her com- 
plaisance. 

There had been small tentative presumptions upon his 
part before the presence of the Lichfield clergyman imposed 
a restraint upon his gallantries, and since. At some inn by 
the road, at which a stop had been made for lunch, a young 
Scots gentleman awaiting means to reach London, but dis- 
appointed of a seat in the Chester stage, had sate at their 
table. The youth was tall, lean, and high-featured, courteous 
and well mannered, but for some reason the Major had 
thought proper to snub him. 

The girl, drawn instinctively towards the one person of 
her age, had accepted some trivial service at his hands, but 
had not repeated her civility, seeing that the men would have 
been at one another’s throats with but little encouragement. 
Not that the Scot brawled : he left what words passed to the 
Irishman, ruling, if not contenting himself, with a laboured 
and vigilant politeness. 

It was after this scene, in which Tighe had not shown to 
advantage, that the girl had passed an almost silent day in 
his company, but had been touched by his penitence towards 
evening, arid relented so far as to reply to him. 

But what excellent company he had been upon the whole ! 
how various, how amusing ! His stories of service — for he had 
made no secret of his profession — had alternately horrified 
and fascinated. His (supposed) disablement had moved her 
pity. What extraordinary creatures were men ! 

Since the small, tree-embowered cathedral village, with its 
three ruddy, weather-eaten spires, where the clergyman 
joined them, Mr. Tighe, as Sue believed the Irishman to be, 
had adopted a demeanour of gentle, taciturn courtesy. But, 
once upon this last evening, she had found him pressing her 
hand. Her own had been instantly withdrawn, but the 
experience had fluttered, alarmed, and, must it be ad- 
mitted ? — amused her. The warmth, the weight, the muscu- 
lar vibration of those great fingers wakened within her 
thoughts of she knew not what. She tingled and shrank, 
and, withal, smiled in the friendly darkness. It would be 
soon over now. 

A man and a woman! — the simplicity of the primal re- 
lation, its necessity, its universality strike one silent. Yet 
narrowly considered, you shall find plentiful exceptions to 


104 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


its rule, the antique Rule of Two, deficiency upon this hand, 
excess upon the other, misfits that pass muster, sound work- 
manship tossed aside. Here, for example, stands me a natural 
good fellow, seemly, frank, and brave, a man’s man, and what 
is more, a leader of men, in whom, for some reason inexplicable, 
women see naught, with whom the good and the bad of the 
sex will have nothing to say or to do. And, here again, stands 
me his counterpart, a man whom men instinctively distrust, a 
little contemptible, shuffling rat of a fellow, say — or, just a 
“ poor so-and-so,” or, say again, a strapping, presuming mass 
of manhood with a manner objectionable to his kind ; all’s 
one, big or little, he has sorcery, the touch incommunicable, 
and women, old and young, gentle and simple, good and 
bad alike, are sensible of the charm ; both those who resist 
and those who yield must admit the mystic drawing. And 
of this fellowship was the Irishman. 

Suddenly they were at their journey’s end, a city inn-yard 
at night, a scene of bewildering bustle and sound. The steps 
were down, the insides were alighting, and Sue must leave 
the warm confinement of the vehicle that had grown so 
familiar to her ; no home, but a refuge of a sort, and the 
only one she knew in this turmoil. She must out and take 
her stand amid a crowd of rough, strange, preoccupied men- 
folk, each pushing and crying his own concerns. Oh, the 
rudeness of ostlers dragging pairs of steaming horses by 
their heads ! Oh, the incivility of porters, with their “ By 
yer leave, madams ! ” elbowing one another aside, and 
thrusting off interlopers. The pressure, the confusion, well- 
nigh benumbed the faculties of this gently bred country girl. 

The lady-passenger had perfunctorily wished her well ; 
the dean had said “ Dear, dear,” and had exclaimed upon 
the remissness of her friends, but without proffering practical 
assistance. She had satisfied coachman and guard. She 
had lost Mr. Tighe. ” Stand where ye are,” he had bidden 
her ; ” you will certainly be met ; your aunt (it is your aunt, 
is it not ?) your aunt will be sending a coach for you, that 
is certain.” He had bowed low and gone, the last of him 
being a glimpse of his tall figure in chat with that insignificant 
long-nosed young man who had used the seat beside the 
driver. But no one had come. She was beset by porters 
capping to her, offering their services in this queer, new, dipt 
jargon of theirs. A blackamoor accosted her, bedizened in 
blue liveries — the creature was plainly in drink. She turned 
from him : he was clouted and sent about his business in 
tears. A big, red-faced fellow was beside her in battered 
tricorne and long drab riding-coat, with a multiplicity of 
shoulder capes* “ Miss Travis,” said he (the fellow had 


THE HOME-COMING OF SUSAN 


105 

her name), “ I be sent by yer haunt. This yere yer trunk ? 
Ho, come along o’ me, my lady.” Sue accompanied him, 
doubting nothing. 

The coach drew up before an unlit house in an ill-lit street. 
The driver having thumped the door with his whip-stock, 
threw down the step. He had put down her trunk beneath 
the iron link extinguisher, and turned upon her demanding 
his fare. The man’s haste and rapacity startled her, as with 
fingers as yet unused to the management of a silk-net purse 
with its two steel rings, she fumbled in the half-light. She 
had seen another coach leave the adjoining house as they 
approached, and now a third was turning the corner of the 
street. The man s impatience grew, his demeanour lost the 
last trace of civility, he would have her look quick and not 
keep an honest man in the street all night : madams should 
know where to put their hands upon their fares. ’Twas a 
crown he would take, not a copper less, swop-me-bob ” 
(whatever that might imply). He cursed what she timidly 
offered for an (unblessed) half-bull, demanded more, snatched 
at the purse, and missing it, gripped her wrist. Rapid steps 
were approaching, her heart sank, she did not cry out ; she 
was in the hands of the Philistines, and still her aunt’s door 
remained closed. Her adversary, redolent of beer and onions, 
hung over her, swearing and shaking her. Next moment he 
was tumbling in the kennel and Mr. Tighe stood over him. 
He silently picked from the pavement the coin the creature 
had let fall, and as the other had arisen and was breathing 
battle, sprang at him and struck him again and yet again. 
The girl stood trembling upon the doorstep, watching the 
men, both tall and not ill-matched — the coachman the better 
with his fists — beating one another beneath a hanging oil-lamp. 
In a few seconds the determined onslaught of her champion 
had prevailed, the ruffian fell a second time, and whilst lying 
was soundly drubbed by his conqueror, who seemed wholly 
overmastered by his passion. But the street was arousing, 
doors were opened upon the chain, and some one from an 
upper window sprang a rattle to call the watch. Then, out 
of the ring of darkness around the fighters, stooped a pair of 
long arms, and Mr. Tighe’s wrists were caught in a grip more 
powerful than his own. Fortunately for himself and for Sue’s 
ears, he was breathless, and before he could recover his speech, 
his captor addressed him in slow, grave tones, as of a man 
measuring his words. 

“ Thee has done enough. . . . Let thy man be. . . . No, I 
am not of his gang, nor of thine ; but just for peace. ... Up 
and off with thee, driver ! ” 

The fallen man, who had been covering his ear with his arm. 


io6 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


arose, and finding his enemy in irons, so to say, wiped his 
mouth upon his cuff, and getting to his box, drove off whipping 
hard. 

But the most of this Sue had not seen. When her deliverer 
was overpowered, as she supposed by some confederate villain, 
all that she had ever heard told of the lawlessness of the streets 
of London came back to her. Shrieking her best, she beat 
upon the door with her little hands, nor ceased until, to her 
amazement, she heard behind her Mr. Tighe’s jolly laugh, and 
judged things to be less serious than her fears had led her to 
suppose. 

She turned, her coach was gone, another was standing at 
the door of the adjoining house. Mr. Tighe, somewhat breath- 
less, but in evident good humour, was beaming down upon a 
man of less stature than himself but of more considerable 
girth and reach, a short-legged person of middle age (old he 
seemed to Sue by his grizzled chin), a mariner by his sea-boots 
and frock, the salient features of his square figure being a 
pair of long and massive arms which hung elliptically clear 
of his sides. 

Did the girl take in all this at a glance ? I know not. We 
are percipient of far more at a momentary view than we could 
reproduce in words of description, yet not of more than may 
recur to memory after an interval. The child was conscious 
of the proximity of a new male personality of a reposeful 
carriage, which somehow reassured her, she could not have 
said why. Instinct came into play. Why does a baby cease 
crying when suddenly placed in the large, firm hands of a 
man ? 

That Tighe, or Boyle, should have submitted without re- 
sentment to the active interference of a stranger, a common 
person, too, and should have accepted the position with good 
humour, may seem out of his character. But the man was 
no fool. When first gripped he had supposed himself in the 
hands of an enemy, and had put forth his whole strength, nor 
doubted of instant success. His effort had failed, and simul- 
taneously he was aware of the coachman’s flight, and that 
whoever was holding him was his master and well-wisher, 
whom to resist was folly. His forced laugh of acquiescence 
earned him instant liberty and restored his equanimity, for 
the publicity of a street broil was no part of his scheme. Sue, 
beating upon the door, had seen nothing ; neighbours, disap- 
pointed of their sensation, were closing casements ; he was 
impatient to be alone with the lady. 

“ I have to thank ye for saving me from basting a very 
paltry fellow, sir ; one who would, as I think, have been none 
the worse for a sound thumping. But let that pass ; ye 


THE HOME-COMING OF SUSAN 


107 

meant kindly, and now I’ll be bidding ye good-night.” He 
drew himself up grandly. 

“ Yah, yah, bor, — what of the young ’ooman ? ” replied 
the other, in quiet, matter-of-fact tones, queerly nasal and 
new to Sue’s ear. Any previous relationship between this 
Irishman and the lady was not in the mariner’s mind. He 
conceived himself as much interested in her as was the other, 
and approached her, checking an involuntary movement of 
his hand to his hat-brim. 

” Oh, is it all over ? Is he gone ? What a rude man ! Oh, 
Mr. Tighe, how can I thank you ? What a chance that you 
were so near. And he said that this was my aunt’s — Miss 
Draycott’s. But I can make no one hear.” 

“ Miss Draycott’s, madam ? But, she is — gone. There 
now. Did not ye get the news in time ? Lawks, now ! — that’s 
a pity not to have heard.” 

This fell from a woman at the door of the adjoining house, 
an elderly person, thin and long-faced, with a narrow-bridged, 
drawn-out nose, squared at the tip over a wide-lipped pro- 
tuberant mouth, an arrangement of feature suggesting a cow. 
Her hair was in papers, a misshapen papillotte over each ear 
heightened the resemblance. Thus thought one half of Susan’s 
mind, while the other half refused to grapple with, or face, 
impending calamity. The curl-paper over one ear was coming 
undone. “The cow,” thought Sue, “ the cow with the crumpled 
horn ! Oh, I must laugh.” 

“ Are you young Miss Travis ? ” asked the woman, the 
curl-papers shaking themselves with a mournful rustle. “ Ah, 
deary me, but ye come too late, miss. Your poor auntie was 
buried a week ago.” 

“ I know ; but it was three weeks since, at Chester. I come 
from Chester,” answered the girl, sobering herself with an 
effort, and now finding tears in the business. 

“ Unfort’n’t young person ! How’s any one to tell her ? 
I know nothink of Chester, my dear ; ’twas here, next door, 
down them steps as you be a-standin’ on, as yer pore auntie. 
Miss Draycott, was took last Tuesday as ever was — in her 
coffin, yes. Pore soul, ’twas somethink suddint, and she made 
a hard end of it, you bein’ much on her mind. ‘ My pore, 
pore, innercent young niece,’ says she to me : ay, a score of 
times, she did : and told as how you was on your way up 
from the country, a motherless horphin, and once started 
most unpossible to stop, nor nowheres to stop at if stopped. 
And you to come to her ’ouse like this, and find her took ! 

* And the Lord, He knows whatever ’ll become of the girl in 
London,’ says she.” 

Sue’s face fell ; she was herself again, had rallied, and could 


io8 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


listen and think. This news touched her very closely, but 
was no stroke at her affections. She had never seen the dead 
woman, and knew but little of her even by repute, save as the 
eldest and least genial member of her mother’s family, who 
had held no communications with her sisters, and had only at 
the repeated requests of the dying woman in Chester given a 
grudging invitation to a niece whose existence she had ignored 
for eighteen years. 

During the journey the girl had indulged in some natural 
speculations as to her unknown relative’s appearance and 
character. She had little to go upon. Her aunt’s advice 
had been non-committal : “ Camilla and your dear mother 

never quite hit it off, my dear; Camilla, being the eldest, 
always had her own way, you see, and was, beside, a little 
peculiar, my dear ; but we won’t go into that.” 

Sue had been willing to give her love if love were possible : 
she had hoped. But what the use of regrets ? All was over ere 
it had begun. There could be no grief in such circumstances, 
only dismay at the collapse of a plan and the absence of an 
alternative. The girl felt herself grow suddenly chilly : she 
braced herself, biting a lip in wide-eyed embarrassment. 
Before her was the dark, empty house ; behind her the dark, 
empty street. 

” Aunt Camilla dead, and buried, and no news ? No word 
for me ? But where can I go ? ” Upon the last word her 
voice trembled with an inflection suggestive of the bleat of a 
lost lamb. 

She turned from the cow-faced woman in the doorway, who 
exchanged swift glances with Tighe. The seafarer, if slow 
of speech, had an eye ; but Sue saw nothing. 

“ One thing is plain ; ye can’t stand in the street all night,” 
resumed the woman. “ Come inside, my dear, and talk things 

over a bit. And, as this gentleman knows ye ” she stood 

aside, holding her door invitingly open. Tighe bowed ready 
assent. 

“ Hospitable offer, begad ! Ye have an excellent heart, 
madam. What say ye, Miss Travis ? Shall we sit for a 
minute and see what can be made of it ? I profess myself 
half -stunned by your predicament ; my heart bleeds for ye ; 

my ” The door closed upon his incomplete avowal of 

sympathy. The little white bird fluttered into the springe. 

The mariner, most stolid of men, looked up the street and 
down the street, and upon the bill pasted upon the door of 
the empty house. It was a short notice of sale dated a month 
earlier. He drew from his pocket a cutty already charged, 
and proceeded with flint and steel to make a light, holding 
the stem between a pair of big yellow dog-teeth. 


THE HOME-COMING OF SUSAN T09 

Meanwhile within doors the woman of the house told her 
tale, a rambling story, in the clipped speech which sounded 
so strangely in Sue’s ears. The creature wondered and 
lamented, and parenthetically suggested, and would be 
calling her Maker to witness the truth of it all, until even 
the frank nature of the young stranger conceived doubts. 

Mr. Tighe, nodding gravely in sympathetic sort, sate apart, 
letting the narrative proceed. Bit by bit the circumstances 
took shape in the girl’s mind. Her aunt had died suddenly 
and in poverty. “ Which the men were in the ’ouse when she 
breathed her last ; ’twas inhuman. Them dratted brokers 
hev gone and cleared the place to the knitted bell-pulls. Not 
a farden for nobody, my dear ! Which she owed me nine 
good shillin’ and sixpence, she did ; ’strewth, wish-I-may-die-if- 
’tain’t ! ” 

“ She is my relation. I’ll repay ye, ma’am,” said Sue. 
But the woman, with Tighe’s eye upon her, declined the 
money. 

‘‘No, no, my dear; and thankye kindly. But, where to 
put ye up for the night ? My every room is let, and to gentle- 
men ; a clergyman for one (which I 'ears 'im a-movin’ about 
over’ead). No, I can’t ’ave. ye ’ere; no, nor can’t honestly 
say as how I knows of a soul as would take ye in at this time 
o’ night, without some letter from a friend, and wanting the 
good word of a ’ouse-’older. London lodging-’ouse keepers 
hev to be that perticular. Our kericters is precious. There’s 
the Lord Mayor and the Watch to consider.” 

“ But I cannot lie in the street,” exclaimed the girl, her 
predicament looming high and dangerous before her. 

The cow-faced woman folded her hands, and, ruminating 
silently, allowed this aspect of the case to be considered. Her 
features were never at rest ; her eyes were over her shoulder, 
down at her toes, in the dark corners of the room, whilst the 
jaw behind that wide, loose mouth, was softly going all the 
time. 

Tighe, convinced that his moment had come, struck in. 

“ Madam, me dear leedy, your position is crool ; 'tis 
precarious ; ’tis more, for ’tis desprut. Your bereavement, 
your definceluss youth, your hilpluss sex appale to me.” He 
arose and paced the room. “ They claim me loyle support.” 
He came to a stand between the lady and the door. '• There 
is but wan coorse for a man of feeling, for a gentleman to 
take. I would offer ye me all, me purse, me sword, me hearth 
(if I had the forchune to possess such a thing), but even your 
angelic innocence must be awayre that such offers are insults 
onless coupled with the proffer of me name” — throwing a 
chest. “ Begad 1 I’ll do ut ! Here, madam,” advancing 


no 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


a step, “ take me as I stand, a poor soldier of forchune, 

Major Cornelius B Tighe ! As yer husband I shall have 

the right to protict ye. . . . heart and hand, Miss Travis. 
Or, may I not addriss ye as Susan ? ’Pon me sowl. Sue, I 
can offer ye no more, and no less.” He dropped upon his 
knee, and reached for the child’s hand ; it hung by her side, 
and now for a moment lay passive in his hold. 

“ Gracious ’Eavins, what a noble ’eart ! ” exclaimed the 
woman, wiping an eye with the corner of an unclean apron. 
The girl shuddered and disengaged her fingers. 

“ Hus- band ? Marry ? No, no, not yet ! Oh, what shall 
I do ? Oh, let me go ! ” She freed herself with an effort 
and sped past him to the door, only to be adroitly intercepted 
by the woman. To the window she rushed, choking and 
panting piteously ; the casement gave, her head and shoulders 
were through ; there, beneath the lamp, stood the same square 
breadth of manhood, solid and silent, whose promptitude 
and temperate restraint had not been lost upon her. 

“ Oh, oh, man ! ” she wailed. The mariner’s dark visage 
was turned to hers ; he clapped his pipe into a side-pocket, 
and stood alertly to attention, a pair of steady eyes shining 
in the lamplight. 

“ What ails thee, my gal ? What can I dew for thee ? 
Yes, I’m a-comin’.” 

“ The deuce ! this spoils all. She’ll be shrieking directly. 
No, I’ll have no force,” said Tighe to the woman, whose arms 
were around Sue’s waist. “ Where now is that confounded 
parson ? ” 

The door opened, the priest’s foot was on the threshold ; 
behind him pressed the mariner, a four-square tower of self- 
collected strength. He swung the clerk aside without a by- 
y’r-leave. “ What be all this ? ” he said, taking post by 
the girl. 

Tighe’s eye sparkled ; prompt in action, he grew tense 
with desire to close and thrust forth, but now it was the 
woman’s hand upon his arm which restrained him. “ Let be ; 
I’ll have no fighting in my ’ouse ! Play him ; he’s simple. 
Ye’ll want a man to give her away,” was her low word in his 
ear. She felt the knotted forearm relax; the man grunted 
assent ; he understood her and she him, though acquaintance 
of but ten minutes’ standing. 

Susan was clinging to the mariner. “Oh, sir, she’s dead. 
I’ve not a soul. . . . I’m lost.” Her voice broke. The 
woman and Tighe began together, the latter gave way. 

“ Here be a pore young female throwed on London streets, 
in a manner of speaking, for ’tis as she say, her auntie dead 
and buried, and the sticks next door seized and sold no longer 


THE HOME-COMING OF SUSAN 


hi 


ago than yesterday. ’Tis ruin for a girl. She’ve absolute 
nowheres to lay her ’ead. But this kind gen’elman, wot 
knows no more of her nor myself, outer pity and a good 
*eart, hups and hoffers her marriage and the cover of ’is 
name.” 

“ That is so,” said Tighe shortly. The parson, the new- 
comer, cleared a nervous throat in the background. “ Can 
I ? May I ? ” he whispered, but none heeded him, for the 
grave, slow sailorman’s eye, which seemed, as Sue afterwards 
thought, to be used to immeasurable distances, turned upon 
Tighe, who nodded grandly in reassurance. 

“ But I won’t — I can’t. Oh, if it wasn’t so dark, and if 
I knew the ways of the place, I would go somewhere, find 
some one. But it’s all, all. . . . Oh, what shall I do ? ” wept 
the girl, beating the wires of her trap, a resurge of the counsels 
of her bedfellow at the Griffin flowing in upon her to the 
confusion of inbred virginal maxims. All that she had 
refused to listen to, all that she had failed to understand at 
the time, which had been imprinted upon her memory nath- 
less, by the becks and meaning smiles of the goodwife, these, 
she found, had become part of herself, neither to be forgotten 
nor expelled. Here and now, with breathless haste and outcry, 
as it seemed to her, her life was suddenly at the river’s brink, 
darkness and the wolves of the waste behind, the last shelter 
missed, the last lights out, and before her feet, dancing and 
unsteady, the unwelcome bark of marriage, with its captain, 
her master, a humane and manly figure, bidding her grandly 
aboard. 

This Mr., or Major, Tighe, was it not really and truly noble 
of him ? So disinterested to encumber himself with a baggage 
of a poor girl, an ignorant chit — and at a moment’s notice, 
too. And — and — was he not all that the goodwife had recom- 
mended — big, and fine, and courageous ? Oh, what did it 
all mean, this two-ways-looking heart of hers, which had 
never looked but one way hitherto ? She fled from herself, 
spun upon her little feet, giving her back to her suitor, the 
woman and the silent priest in the shadows by the door, and 
took the sailorman by the rough sleeves, some instinct prompt- 
ing her that with him, if anywhere, lay safety. Standing 
thus, the room’s one candle, a guttering dip, threw what light 
it was capable of throwing upon the rugged hardness of the 
man’s face. The girl pored upon and explored that face with 
a more earnest scrutiny than she had ever bestowed upon a 
human visage. Dogs and children are your true physiog- 
nomists : they seek what is there, not evidence to support a 
preconception. 

The sailorman’s puckered eyes had seen much hard fighting ; 


1 12 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


the brown, lined cheeks and chin of frosted stubble looked 
terribly grim, but the smile atoned for all. " Oh, I don’t care 
what they did to him, or what he used to do to them ; I am 
sure he is a good man now ! ” thought Sue, nor ever exchanged 
that opinion. 

" Bid me do what I ought, sir. First mother went ; then 
auntie (not this one) ; and now Aunt Camilla is gone too, and 
I — I’ve no one ! ” Again that note of desolation : " Oh, what 
ought I ? ” 

" Nay, I know too little of your — thy matters,” he began 
slowly, from a deep chest upon a breathing resonant note. 

" Then take me with you, somewhere, anywhere ; I should 
be safe with you.” 

" The slut : to think of it, with a common sailor ! ” cried 
the woman, throwing up her hands. 

The hard lines about the mouth of the seaman deepened. 
" Home with me ye cannot go, poor lamb, for home I’ve 
none, save a caretaker’s bunk on a snow that’s lying in Bugsby’s 
Reach, and that’s worse lodging for a woman than this.” 

“ God save us ! ” cried the woman. " There’s sense in 
him too ! ” 

" Woman, I’ll thank ye — thee, I should say — not to be 
taking that Holy Name in vain,” said the sailor solemnly. 

" My man,” interposed Tighe, curbing his impatience, 
" ye seem to know life. This lady has referred herself to 
you.” 

"Yes,” mused the other, " she be a strand — out of her 
course, and on the mud for a tide. You lie by, you pass a 
hawser, you offer to salve — on terms. She’ve no ch’ice, as I 
can see. (But ’tis my human wisdom ; I wish I’d time — 
I’m a young ’un at the Way, I am — I’d have some of our 
people here, bein’ a simple man, myself.”) He mused again, 
the girl still clinging to his sleeves, shuddering with the strain 
of excitement too long sustained, but still hanging upon his 
words ; when they came she would act. 

"Take him, my gal,” he said at length, "if so be ’tis 
lawful marriage he’s a-offerin’. ’Taint our form, but thou’rt 

not one of Us, nor he, here. But where’s the ? Ho ! ” 

as the parson stepped forward. " A clerk here ? — you ? 
Thee are mighty pat, young man ! And where did thee spring 
from ? ” 

" ’Tis his reverence, the curate of this perrish, sir. He have 
lodged with me this three year,” lied the woman glibly. 

" Oh, Mr. Tighe, ye will be good to me, won’t ye ? ” wept 
the girl weakly, yielding to fate. " Ye would not — ye could 
not treat me ill ? ” 

All that remained of good in the man moved faintly and 


THE HOME-COMING OF SUSAN 


ii3 

strove for its life. He shook for one instant, then his worse 
self overmastered him. “ Treat ye ill, my dear ? Then may 
God forget me ! ” 

The mariner, still doubting, yielded also, and with some 
prompting from the priest, a nervous snuffling person, with 
his back to the light, took the part assigned him, and gave 
away the half-consenting, wholly dazed Susan. 

It was done. The bridegroom stooped to kiss his new 
possession. The bride, covering her cheek with her hand, 
gave a small, piteous outcry. The sailor, growingly dissatisfied 
with the part he had been prevailed upon to play, put aside 
the money offered by the Major, and looking the man squarely 
in the face, addressed him with disconcerting plainness. 

“ Friend, I’ve my doubts of thee, and about this business. 
I’ve acted in haste, and without waiting for guidance. Ay, 
anything be possible when ye’re over the edge of the chart. 
There’s a sound of broken water hereabouts ; but I hope 
otherwise. Belay that ! ” The bridegroom’s impatience was 
breaking forth in a hot, low word. “I’m not one of our Re- 
cordeds ; I’ve never opened my lips in full meeting, but this 
is the Word of the Lord unto thee : As thee treats this here 
young ’ooman, so shall He treat thee in thy hour of need.” 
He clapped on his hat and went. 

Tighe watched him forth. “ I had thought one priest at a 
wedding was plenty,” he blurted, and bit his underlip, per- 
ceiving, as even the highest stomach must at times, that 
silence became him best. 

“ La, Mrs. Tighe, my dear, I wish ye joy,” cackled the 
woman of the house, reclaiming the ring she had lent, and 
bending for a kiss. 

The bride shrank away from her, turning shyly towards the 
parson, whose tones tantalised her memory. His wig and 
bands reminded her of no one in her past life in special, but 
where has she heard that voice ? The man gave her his back 
and left the room. 

The bridegroom rounded upon her, jovial and brisk: 
“ Susan, or Sukey, or Sue, shall it be ? Ha, my love, that’s 
over, and now for our coach and to our lodging.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Tighe, what can I say ? Just as ye will, of 
course. I am sure I am most grateful, for I’m dead tired ; 
but are ye sure ye are not making a mistake ? I am thinking 
; ye will be finding me sorely in your way.” 

“ Bless her pretty ’eart ! ” sighed the woman, and actually 
shed a tear. 

The door went to, the wheels moved, they were gone. At 
the end of the street a man standing beneath a lamp stepped 
aside to allow the coach to pass, glanced keenly after it, and 

8 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


114 

retraced his steps to the house it had left. It was the sailor- 
man oppressed by an afterthought. He reperused the bill j 
upon the door of the adjacent house, and smote his thigh 
hard. “Too hasty again ; the Lord forgive me ! An on- 
faithful servant I be, as usual ; and up to ivery mortal mischief 
when so be as I walks alone ! ” 

As he stood thus the door of the other house opened, the 
priest peeped forth, spied the mariner and was for softly 
reclosing it, but the sailor, who, for all his bulk, seemed a 
person of surprising agility, had his foot in the opening and 
his shoulder after it without a word. 

“ Nay, I must come in, bor,” he said, and made good his 
entrance. The woman met him in the passage, shading her 
light with her hand. 

“ What’s all this ? ” she asked tartly. The intruder, 
before replying, set his back to the door and looked the pair 
over. The woman met his scrutiny with voluble hardihood, 
but did not detain his eyes. But the priest, what had hap- 
pened to him ? He was now in lay habit, and wearing a 
brown wig. 

“ And who may you be ? ” asked the woman for the third 
time. “ Friend of yours ? D’ye know him ? ” she de- 
manded of the priest, who stammered that he had never set 
eyes upon the fellow in his life. 

“ So ? As bad as that ? I feared as much after that 
there bill,” growled the mariner. “And now, master Par- 
son, a word with yew — thee, I’d say — we sim tew have bin a 
bit tew fast over that there marryin’ business. What of the 
lines ? ” 

“ W-what 1-lines ? ” gasped Baskett, and gave his case 
away with his face. His confederate, more ready, and affect- 
ing belated recognition, assured the questioner that the writing 
had been done after his departure, and the document taken 
by the married couple ; but this would not pass. 

“ Pen, ink, and paper, Master Clerk. I didn’t sign that there 
one she tell sech a lot about, soo I doubt ’tis good-for-naw- 
thing. But I’ll put my fist to this.” 

There was no denying so determined a postulant, nor valid 
reason for refusal. The mariner, who seemed something of 
a scholar, scrutinised the document narrowly in the making, 
and again at his leisure when completed. “ Tighe, he called 
hisself, eh ? And didn’t I hear thee call him ‘ Major ’ ? 
Put that down then. Susan Agathy was her name, and don’t 
be telling me ye don’t remember her surname ; her husband, 
as I hopes he be, called her Miss Travis when he cuffed the 
driver ; put that down. And didn’t her maiden aunt live 
next door ? Well, put down, * Niece to Miss Draycott — 


THE HOME-COMING OF SUSAN 115 

Camilly Draycott — she spoke of her so.* (There be another 
name upon the bill, I see.) Now sign it, yew two, and I’ll 
do as much. 'Tain’t legal, I doubts, but ’twill prove some- 
thing, the innercence of the young ’ooman, and ” folding 

and pocketing the document, “ the guilt of some awthers. 
*Night t’yer.” 


CHAPTER II 

SUSAN THE BRIDE 

Thus began tumultuously, at a moment’s notice, a wonderful 
three weeks for little Sue. 

Other women are wooed and beckoned by gentlest degrees 
to this momentous change in life and circumstance. The 
admiration and shy envy in the eyes of girl friends keep them 
up ; their mothers’ promptings hearten and assure ; the 
gates of the home-croft of maidenhood close behind them ; 
the forest glades of matrimony, endless, green, delicious, and 
mysterious, open as they move ; they are led forward with 
laughter and timbrels ; all nature rejoices ; peals are rung, 
and a merry world called to witness and join in their triumph. 
And all the while, from out the dim forest comes with slow 
but confident step, the Other One, so strangely dear, so wonder- 
ful, the half-dreaded, wholly-desired comrade, the master of 
the new life that is to be. 

In all this Sue had no part. The sanctions with which 
human society, ay, from its beginnings, has guarded its 
precious things had failed, or well-nigh failed, the girl at her 
need. Through no fault of hers, her young life was caught 
by the current or ever she was aware, swept along to the fall, 
whirled to the brink, and over. Morally it was a marriage by 
capture as fully as any rudest nuptial in the dim red dawn 
of- man and woman. 

But of this again she was ignorant, as of so much else which 
it behoved her to know. For the moment her little heart, of 
late so inexpressibly lonely and sad, was filled with abounding 
gratitude. The image which she, in common with every 
happily wedded daughter of Eve, had constructed of her 
husband, was of a magnificently condescending, all-glorious 
personality. A much-travelled Odysseus, home from his war- 
faring, had stooped to rescue and ennoble with his love (think, 
with his love !) a piece of helpless girlhood, all ignorance 
and poverty. It was marvellous. Her heart swelled to 

116 





SUSAN THE BRIDE 


“7 

think that of all womankind she — just she — had been singled 
out for the honour, the mercy of this well-nigh divine benefi- 
cence. 

Shall we wonder, then, that the first fortnight of her brief 
honeymoon was a white-magical time, or that London 
seemed an enchanted city swept with merry winds of laughter, 
sunlit and pulsating with life and glee, boisterous, amazing, 
such as she had never conceived of as possible in her hitherto 
cloistered round of home duties and gentle affections ? 

Shall we compare it to the first evening of winged life that 
comes to some great fawn-and-purple hawk-moth ? The 
constriction and darkness of its ten months’ prison have 
given place to bewildering lights and alluring savours. Its 
new senses, all unversed in the impressions pouring in upon 
them, are tingling for experience, its limbs for action. Those 
new and marvellous wings, untried as yet, are uncrumpling, 
expanding, vibrating, are feeling for the elastic uprush of 
scented air that shall support them. Its big round eyes, all 
wonder and haste and pathetic ignorance, are moving, shining. 
Ah me, think of it; and think of this girl, just such a 
child of nature, aglow with health, a-tingle with life, and 
flushed, ere she was ready or warned, with the strong wine 
of a first passion. 

Her little heart danced in her bosom all day, and twenty 
times a day she looked her hero over from top to toe, turning 
upon him starry eyes of admiration. 

Doubt not that there were reactions, too ; but that masterful 
and engrossing creature, her husband, absorbed her, body 
and soul. All the primal woman in her bowed in worship 
before his brawny strength ; the mighty limbs seamed and 
pitted with the records of his conflicts thrilled her with rapture. 
She kissed his scars, shuddered as he told the story of each ; 
lies, alas ! albeit of the nine, four had been gotten in honourable 
warfare, if not as picturesquely as he could have desired. 
As to the small white pistol-punctures he must needs be silent 
or invent, and having begun ’twas so easy to go on. To 
this adventurer romancing was an effective and pleasing form 
of self-expression : so he romanced as to each and all, watching 
the doting, innocent eyes of his child-bride dilate with wonder 
as he regaled her with tales of exploits, every third word a 
lie, more duly told than the Turk’s tribute. At this exercise 
the bravado of the man overstepped caution. Sue listened and 
marvelled, and felt at first wonder, then confusion, upbraiding 
herself for doubt when he plainly contradicted himself, but at 
length relapsing to a pained silence and lack of further interest : 
the first cloud. 

“ Sure as my name is Boyle ! ” out it popped — once. Sue’s 


n8 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


wonder was appeased with : “ A cant word in me old mess, me 
love.’* She would not entertain a doubt. 

So sped her three weeks of passion, a delirium of marvels 
on which her long and happy after-life looked back with 
tremulous wonder. How could she have loved him so — 
or at all ? So might some slow-blooded citizen of the old 
time, whom the sudden onset of an enemy had at a moment’s 
notice converted to a hero, review in old age the fierce hour 
when he, even he, a goldbeater, or loriner, or peaceful needle- 
man, had swung bill and stabbed hotly knee to knee in the 
press until the French Fury ebbed away and old Antwerp 
was saved. 

As for her master, he grasped his cup of delight with both 
hands and gulped fast, putting from him the thought of the 
future. He left to himself and to his pathetically grateful 
girl-wife small time for reflection. If London was new to her 
it was as new to him ; and whilst the money lasted he was for 
seeing and doing whatever was to be seen and done. It was 
an interlude of respectability and clean living. The man 
was amazed at his own capacity for innocent pleasure, and 
for a fortnight felt himself a boy again. From the Tower 
lions and Greenwich Hospital to St. Paul’s, the Abbey, and the 
Parks, nothing came amiss to him while that delicious face 
was at his side, that small, soft hand upon his arm. The 
pace was hot, for the time was short. The girl loved him for 
his lavish generosity, nor knew that the money which was 
flying was her own, nor remembered the lengthening bill at 
their lodging in America Square, a little backwater between 
Crutched Friars and the Minories. All went gaily in the main ; 
the gray weather of a London winter was softened and gilded 
and rose-tinted by the fingers of the mad little god, nor were 
her bright eyes opened to the drift of it all, nor dimmed with 
tears, until that rueful night when, after long waiting, her 
husband, her benefactor, whose pity for her distress had, as 
she proudly told her heart, warmed to love for herself, returned 
to her arms brutally drunk, and awaked the next morning 
savagely sober, hating himself, a changed man, with a de- 
testable, unavowed purpose. 


CHAPTER III 


MONDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 

Duddingstone House stood in Piccadilly, at the corner of 
Half-Moon Street, upon ground since occupied by a wine- 
merchant’s shop. A red-brick-and-stone mansion designed 
by a pupil of Mr. Inigo Jones, its tall, narrow ground-floor 
windows were barred Spanish fashion, the better to secure 
the treasures collected by the first two Viscounts Dudding- 
stone, father and son, who, caring neither for sport, women, 
nor politics, had amassed such a cabinet of marbles, pictures, 
medals, and gems as was hardly to be matched in Northern 
Europe. 

The second viscount had indulged a taste for statuary and 
old masters, had travelled in Italy with Walpole, and enjoyed 
the hospitality of Mann — friendships which had descended to 
his son, who corresponded regularly by every mail with His 
Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary at the Court of Florence, 
and dined with, and was jealous of, the master of the fabulous 
treasures of Strawberry Hill. In fact, the two virtuosi, the 
gouty old gentleman, soon willy-nilly to be Earl of Orford, 
and the third Viscount Duddingstone, were rivals. Walpole 
could with difficulty stomach the son of his old friend, his 
own pupil in matters of taste, bidding against him for a 
Byzantine missal, its covers encrusted with uncut carbuncles, 
or for a Greek urn of the best period, perfect as the day it 
left its maker’s hands — prizes which the poorer man was never 
to secure, for the Collector of His Majesty’s Customs, Clerk 
of the Pells and Auditor of Imprest, had a bottomless purse. 

Nor was my Lord Duddingstone altogether at his ease in 
the presence of a man who had taught him the best of all that 
he knew, whose hand, though crippled, outreached him for 
whatever it chose to grasp, and whose agents were everywhere, 
and only to be outwitted by superior agility and stealth. 

Yet they dined together from habit, and got upon one 
another’s nerves over the Bordeaux, which was all that either 
dared take, by elaborately casual revelations of successes ; 


T19 


120 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


a gold inlaid sword-guard from sealed Japan, a Judaa capta 
in mint state from the temple of Juno Monet a itself. 

It was the costliness of his hobby which had driven my 
Lord Duddingstone into politics. Money he must have, and 
money was to be got for a vote which he hated giving, but 
cared not to whom he gave if it had to be given at all. 
Coming thus into the arena late, he had surprised himself 
and his party by displaying in a novel field the acuteness 
hitherto restricted to detecting the forgeries and impositions 
oi dealers, and to the outwitting of rival virtuosi. At the 
India House in Leadenhall Street he was already a power, 
and thoroughly enjoyed exercising his newly discovered 
faculty. He had placed his own pocket-borough of Hedon 
at the service of the Company, and had negotiated the pur- 
chase of Bossiney and Beeralston for the Honourable Court ; 
in a word, the late middle-age, or second youth, of the third 
Lord Duddingstone might have been the happiest period of 
his life, but for an untoward circumstance for which there 
was no remedy. He was the father of a fool. 

King Solomon has described this calamity from personal 
experience. I do not propose to compete with so classic an 
authority. Let it suffice that the Honourable Frederick 
Pelham Scrivener (Scrivener is the family name of the Dudding- 
stones) possessed some of the less endearing traits of the 
youthful Rehoboam. Discipline, encouragement, and oppor- 
tunity were wasted upon him ; his tastes traversed those of 
his ancestors in every particular : the lad would sooner run 
a mile than look at a medal, or sit out a dozen cock-fights 
than con a codex. Where his book was concerned the young 
gentleman was bone-idle ; he had low tastes and was a liar ; 
worst of all, he lay under something graver than suspicion 
of pilfering from his father’s cabinet. 

It was a heart-breaking business for the Viscount ; recurrent 
depredations had at first been set down to thieves ; later to 
servants ; dilettanti visitors were eyed askance. The place 
was fortified and watched like a madhouse, but costly trifles 
still disappeared, for the father could not bring himself to 
suspect his offspring. “ I hung the shutters with bells and 
wires until I could scarce turn in my bed without setting 
the place a-jingling. I kept dogs until the house stank, and 

neither I nor my neighbours could sleep, but ” in a word, 

the fact was at length patent. 

The young rascal must be sent from home. But whither ? 
The Grand Tour, as played with variations by his father 
and grandfather, was out of the question. France was closed 
to the English traveller for the moment, and was likely to be 
inhospitable for years to come. Italy was not to be thought 


MONDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 121 

of ; the “ Woman Country ” of the poet would probably 
present to this booby scion of a learned stock allurements of 
a different kind from those which had charmed his ancestors. 
This was a cub which no bear-leader could keep upon the 
chain. 

With what puzzled disgust, think you, did the disappointed 
father peruse the lineaments of his son ? “ Not mine, not 

one of ’em ; nor his poor mother’s ; God rest her soul ! ” 
No, this hawbuck, half bully, half sneak, a terror to the maids, 
but, where a man was in the case, sensitively solicitous for the 
integrity of his noble skin, this domestic Cataline, alieni 
appetens, sui profusus , must needs be a throw-back to a 
mesalliance of six generations earlier. Several of our good 
families have some ancestor (or ancestress) who serves as 
whipping-boy for disapproving descendants. Irregular tend- 
encies, vagrant tastes, and personal defects are charged to the 
account of a disreputable old ghost, but for whose inter- 
position it is assumed that the race would have bred true 
to type. 

“ Confound that Molly Horrocks ! ” muttered the third 
Viscount Duddingstone, whose one successful effort at 
paternity had resulted in perpetuating the single undesirable 
strain in his blood. 

There were Darwinians before Darwin. 

“ P atria potestas. Did ye never hear of it ? Ignoramus ! ” 
grunted the exasperated father, looking over the tops of his 
glasses at his heir, convicted but unabashed. “ Boy, in old 
Rome I should probably have put ye to death — yes, * life 
and limb ’ — yes ; and the Senate would have approved and 
given me choice of lads of the best families for adoption.” 

“ Lord, sir ! ye don’t say so ? ” exclaimed the Honourable 
Fred, examining the condition of his tongue in a pocket 
mirror. 

• • Thieves are hanged daily, and why not you ? ” demanded 
the father with heat, adding (oh, bathos !) after a pause, “ I’ll 
send ye to Oxford.” 

So to Christ Church the scamp was sent, and placed under 
the eye of a tutor, whom his lordship was assured was a most 
competent person. “ The companionship of ingenuous youth 
of noble stocks, and the softening example of pious and 
learned men cannot fail of effecting an improvement,” said 
my lord, who was possibly a better judge of medals than of 
men. If there were any rough places in the paths of learning 
at Oxford the feet of the Honourable Fred never found them ; 
everything was carefully made smooth for a tuft. The 
deference of the dons to a young gentleman who might at 
any moment blossom out into a full-blown peer of the realm 


122 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


was a touching exhibition of our national characteristic. His 
degree presented no difficulties to examiners who had no 
intention of examining, or to an incorrigible dunce who 
dreamed not of offering himself for examination. It would be 
conferred upon a nobleman in posse whenever he should choose 
to honour an ancient seat of learning by suggesting that his 
name might be added to the list of her Masters of Arts. 

His father, meanwhile, solaced himself with the success of 
a protege , Octavius Baskett, by name, son of the steward 
of his Cheshire property, a nervous, studious lad, whom his 
patron had sent first to Shrewsbury school and later to 
Christ Church as servitor. The experiment might have turned 
out worse — or better. The man had done passably in the 
schools ; his scholarship lacked style. Industrious he had 
been, and steady, being, as his patron hoped, too poor to be 
anything else ; and having taken a degree and deacon’s orders, 
was installed at Duddingstone House as domestic chaplain 
and curator of the family collections. So, to London he 
came, and his patron, a sanguine person, had his hopes 
of him, albeit this man of his making was not much to look 
at. The little, poring, narrow-chested boy, the dilling-pig of 
Baskett p&re’s long litter, had done indifferent justice to his 
college breeding. The unformed snub nose had first thickened 
across the bridge, and then lengthened unconscionably, over- 
powering a runaway chin. The eyes, which had been wistful, 
had grown shifty, and were still small. The man stooped 
and was ill at ease in good company. He winced, and half 
arose from his chair when suddenly addressed by a person of 
condition. 

“ 'Fore Heaven,” ruminated the patron, “ Walpole was 
right. I have but half done his business. When the fellow 
missed that scholarship I should have made it up to him, and 
not sent him to the servitors’ table. This scraping of trenchers 
marks a man. I’ve wasted my silk. Here is my sow’s ear 
back upon my hands, a sow’s ear still. I believe I did once 
promise his father a living for him. Humph ! His Majesty 
may some day make ye a bishop, my boy, but God Almighty 
could not make ye a gentleman. Meanwhile, ye shall stick 
to my medals.” 

: Alack ! the creature was a man, like the rest of us. Meat, 
drink, and the collating of manuscripts were not enough for 
him ; and having too much time upon his hands, and living 
too high, his morals deteriorated. Pity him ; his position 
was lonely, anomalous, neither one thing nor the other. A 
youngster with the education of a gentleman and the instincts 
of an inferior, debarred by his profession and surroundings 
from the society of the youth of either class. Yet society 


MONDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 


123 

a man must have, so, with an eye to his position and prospects, 
he was wont to pay evening visits to a house of call where he 
kept a change, whence in lay habit he might proceed in safety 
to study the night side of the Borough. But study upon 
these lines, however economically pursued, can hardly be 
prosecuted without money. Moreover, he was traced by 
his lordship’s butler, an elderly man and a jealous ; thence- 
forth the chaplain was in the power of that butler, who would 
have him into the pantry to play small games of chance with 
himself and the housekeeper, to both of whom Mr. Baskett 
presently found himself a debtor for larger sums than he 
cared to think about or saw his way to repay. 

A weak will, costly habits, impatient creditors, and valuables 
within reach, what else could have befallen save what befell ? 
For a while the catastrophe was postponed by the existence 
of those safeguards of which we have spoken ; it was not 
easy to simulate a burglary at Duddingstone House. But 
at Duddingstone Chase the thing was conceivable. Nor was 
convertible spoil wanting. His lordship was a martyr to the 
fidgets ; to-day such or such a strong box was in peril and 
must to the bank under guard ; to-morrow this and that 
should accompany him to the north (armed outriders, of 
course). The best, the most perfect of his portable antiques 
he would sometimes secrete upon his noble person in belts 
of shamoy ; and it was such a belt which disappeared one 
night from his lordship’s dressing-room at Duddingstone. 

Picture to yourselves the pallid misery of elderly retainers, 
the hot, helpless wrath of innocent suspects, the first, un- 
reasoning fury of a hitherto indulgent master, wounded in 
his tenderest susceptibilities. In a matter of three days 
my lord was himself again. A trusty messenger returned 
from Oxford with assurance of what he most desired to know. 
The hand of the Honourable Fred was not in this, at least ; 
he had kept his room and his bed for a week past in con- 
sequence of what the Dean called “ a barb’rous and brutal 
beating perpetrated by a servitor.” My lord hemmed ; he 
knew his son, and servitors. Such do not turn upon gentle- 
men commoners without provocation extraordinary ; he 
would look into the matter later. One thing at a time ; the 
lost antiques first. 

Although a window of the butler’s pantry was known to 
have been found open at daybeak (so much the younger 
servants admitted under cross-examination — Baskett had 
brains of a sort), my lord refused to entertain the theory of 
a house-breaking. Nor would he charge his valet, albeit the 
belt had been taken from a dressing -closet to which none 
but this man and himself had access. Nor the butler, though 


124 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


a pair of the man’s boots were unaccountably muddied and 
wet. These, said his lordship, rallying his judicial faculties, 
are the artifices of a thief who has studied the ways of my 
household. Who has a grudge against these men ? The 
valet, an elderly person, who, after an adventurous youth, 
had taken to religion, abhorred the sight of a card, and read 
Law's Serious Call, could offer no suggestion ; he had not 
an enemy in the world. The butler was less certain. From 
him, and from his crony, the housekeeper, my lord learned 
curious particulars as to the goings-on of his chaplain. Small 
notes of hand were exhibited, with diffidence, for there the 
exhibitors felt themselves upon dangerous ground. Small but 
numerous were these notes, and considerable in the aggregate. 
My lord pinched a dubious lip. 

There was nothing for it but a general search. Would his 
men and women consent to it ? All, even the chaplain, 
agreed with alacrity, but nothing was found. Hope grew 
dim. Walpole sympathised. “ Don’t stint your adver- 
tising, nor your reward,” he counselled. “ Your thief must 
needs have less guilty confederates ; it is to their cupidity 
you must appeal. Meanwhile, be comforted ; there is but 
a limited market for your gems on this side the water. Aaron 
and Conti and the smaller fry have more to gain by pleasing 
than by robbing us ” (my lord liked that “ us ”). “ Yes, once 

put upon the market ye will get wind of ’em. Watch the 
south ports for the man ye suspect, of course ; but I doubt 
his tempting the Channel. A classic, ye say ? He speaks no 
French ? Just so. * Wait ’ is my word. And now, what say 
ye to this ? ” It was a Syracusan tetradrachm from the hand 
of Kimon, greatest of coin gravers, a feast to the eye. But, 
alack ! poor Duddingstone, as his friend knew well, was not 
festally minded at the moment. 


Meanwhile the classic who spoke no French was having a 
poor time of it ; his shillings were running low in that cheap 
lodging of his behind Pickle-Herring Wharf, on the Surrey 
side, where he sate biting his nails. He would venture the 
bridge under cover of night, suspecting every watchman he 
met, to bleat timid remonstrances into the ear of his master. 

“ A whole fortnight, and ye have not gone to him ? ’Twill 
breed suspicion, I tell ye. See, here it is in the News again 
this week, but the reward is not raised . Ye had best be writing 
to his lordship at once. , . . But, why not ? . . . And, con- 
sider, ’tis hard upon me, these delays. Here I sit, unable, 
until my character be cleared, to approach his lordship. He 
always promised me preferment, he cannot honourably 


MONDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 


!25 


refuse. . . . But, anyway, I must be seeking employ ; and 
whilst ye hang fire I cannot show my face by daylight ; 'tis 
mighty hard ! ” 

But Boyle, or Tighe, who could be as wrong-headed as any 
man alive, would drink his delicious cup of dalliance to the 
dregs first. Sue’s garter had yet three guineas in it. Employ- 
ment when it came would perforce come to him in his own name. 
As Boyle he would be reinstated in His Majesty’s service, if 
reinstated he was to be ; but he had married this girl as Tighe. 
The dual personality would be hard to explain ; it would shock 
her, and he shrank from shocking her. Moreover, employ- 
ment would be unlikely to come in a form which would justify 
him in encumbering himself with a wife. The hampered 
poverty of a married major was no part of his scheme ; yet, 
in his selfish way, he loved this child, and pushed from him 
as long as might be possible the inevitable moment of 
desertion — piteous and unpleasing thought. 

Yet, since it was one of his maxims that a man’s business 
should be driven and not drive, he would at length give his 
mind to his case, and thus it befell that a fortnight having 
slipped away, and no higher reward being offered, Boyle judged 
the right moment to have struck for answering the 
advertisement. 

A guarded letter apprised his lordship that a gentleman 
newly come up from the north had had left upon his hands, 

: by the most singular chance in the world, a collection of signets, 
bezels, and ring-stones, which appeared to him to be of con- 
siderable worth. And that, since his coming to Town, he, 

; having by accident learnt of his lordship’s loss, asked his 
lordship’s gracious permission to pay his humble respects 
ij to him, for the purpose of ascertaining whether what he had 
| found should chance to be his lordship’s property. 

Thus Boyle, writing in his own name from a coffee-house 
I in Crutched Friars, to which the reply might be addressed. 
* His lordship replied, giving him an appointment. The Major 
■> rubbed his ear briskly — a trick of his when in perplexity. This 
! letter : what was he to make of it ? It was urbanely in- 
i scrutable, permission to call, no more. He read a dozen 
i meanings into its three sentences, none of which would bear 
: reflection. His lordship was a diplomatist. 

Upon the day he presented himself at Duddingstone House 
well before his time. He was kept waiting in an anteroom for 
a half-hour before being conducted to his lordship’s cabinet, 
a lofty apartment, walled with glazed bookcases defended 
by brass wire grilles, through which gleamed the backs of 
folios and first editions, valuable then, and thrice as valuable 
to-day. There were other evidences of taste and of appre- 


126 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


hension ; the room was darkened by window-bars of singular 
and needless solidity, thought the visitor. 

The master of the house sate with his back to the window, 
the light from which fell upon the papers he was holding, and 
upon others upon the table before him. It also lit the face 
and figure of the man who had just been admitted from the 
anteroom, and who had not been bidden to seat himself. My 
lord was of the school of his contemporary, Lord Chatham, 
who seldom permitted an inferior to sit in his presence save 
with a pen in his hand, and insisted upon his secretaries sub- 
mitting documents to him “ upon the knee.” There was a 
clerk of some sort nibbling a quill at a table in a corner, and 
another person of superior but uncertain status stood beside 
his lordship’s chair. The door closed softly behind the new- 
comer ; my lord, who at a first sight seemed but a pink- 
faced, inconsiderable little person in a morning-gown and 
slippers, looked up without speaking, and adjusted his glasses. 
His short-sighted, prominent gray eyes addressed themselves 
somewhat aggressively to his visitor from under a turban, 
and completed a leisurely survey of his man. He had not 
acknowledged his bow : the little dry specialist was taking 
in the personality of his visitor, the girth, height, swagger, 
and poise of him, and the curbed impatience of his lip. Some 
copper captain, he opined ; then, at the man’s first syllable, 
“ Irish,” and the repulsion was complete. 

“ Mr. Cornelius Boyle, I believe ? ” 

“ The same, my lor’rd, late major of the Forty-first.” 

"You have some communication which you desire to make 
to me.” 

The aridity and coolness of this grandee got upon irritable 
nerves ; the tension showed itself in an increase of ceremonious 
politeness. 

“ My business, my lor’rd, is to place before you some 
valuables which it has occurred to me may possibly be your 
property.” Whilst speaking he had approached the table and 
had laid upon it the shamoy belt, which we have seen change 
hands twice before in the course of this story. 

“ Yes . . . yes ... so I understand,” remarked his lord- 
ship non-committally, emptying the contents upon a sheet of 
blotting-paper and arranging them in a certain order with 
reference to a printed list which lay before him ; this done, 
he coloured slightly and called the attention of the man beside 
him to certain gaps in the line, and folding his hands resumed 
his survey of Boyle, whose sense of injury was already moving. 
This was noway to receive a gentleman recently in His Majesty’s 
service who had gone out of his way to restore stolen property 
to an entire stranger. He had anticipated a private interview, 


MONDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 


127 


had pictured himself gracefully producing the lost gems, had 
seen in imagination the delight of the noble connoisseur, had 
listened to himself relating the story of their recovery in the 
most natural and off-hand manner, a manner which could 
not fail to impress his auditor, who would be loud and hearty 
in commendation, and would presently fall to delicate sugges- 
tions of recognition. Thence the way would have been plain. 
Such had been his forecast, but the event was otherwise. My 
Lord Duddingstone was not alone, the presence of inferiors 
implied suspicion and was mighty unnecessary. 

“ His lordship awaits your explanation, sir,” said the man 
of business. Boyle started slightly. 

“ Explain ? — the way in which these things came into ? — 
with pleasure. ’Twas whilst coaching from Chester to London 
on the thirteenth of December,” began Boyle, and proceeded 
to give a version of the encounter upon Sandylane Hill that 
was true so far as it went, but not free from reservations. My 
lord followed the recital with close attention ; at its close he 
considered the position for some moments before referring it 
to his attendant with a small nod. The man, who was ap- 
parently a lawyer, now took the examination into his hands. 

“You wish his lordship to believe that ye took this belt, 
with its present contents, exactly as they stand, from the 
body of a thief whom ye shot under the circumstances just 
detailed ? ” 

“ That is so — from the man’s pockut, where I was seeking 
me own purse, which the fellow had taken from me before I 
shot him.” 

“ The coach, ye tell us, had gone forward ; it was out of 
sight ; ye w T ere following at your leisure, and alone ? ” 

“ That’s so, I was,” replied *Boyle succinctly, thinking the 
lie a safe one and due to his accomplice. 

His lordship sate passive. His lawyer caressed a flexible 
nose. “Have ye anything more to add to your account,” he 
said, “ or do ye wish, upon second thoughts, to vary anything ? ” 

“ I do not,” replied Boyle, fuming ; “ and, let me tell ye, sir, 
that I cannot but regard all this as exceedingly uncalled for, 
and my reciption ” 

“ Your pardon, sir,” broke in Lord Duddingstone, with so 
loud a voice and so brusque an authority that the Major’s 
complaint was silenced, “You appear to misunderstand your 
position. You have answered my advertisement in the name 
of Boyle. (You are Mr. or Major Boyle ? — I thank ye.) You 
own to having been in possession of this property since the 
thirteenth of last month (nearly three weeks). I have put 
to ye some not unreasonable questions, and have more to 
put, but even as it stands, your tale does not hang together. 


128 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


No, sir ” the Irishman had bridled hotly, “ for there was 

no person of your name travelling from Chester to London 
on the day ye mention. From inquiries which I have in- 
stituted I am in a position to prove that two inside seats 
were booked some days in advance, one by a lady, the other 
by a Mr. Tighe, and that both were occupied.” 

Boyle started and opened his mouth , but my lord imperiously 
shook his finger at him and proceeded: 

“ Do not interrupt me, sirrah. At Waverton a third seat 
was taken by a person calling himself Venner, but whose real 
name is Baskett. This person and the other two passengers 
travelled to Malby Cross, where he and they lay for the night. 

He proceeded upon his journey in their company on the 
following day, alighted at the foot of Sandylane Hill along 
with the person Tighe, fell behind as the coach mounted, and ! i 
subsequently rejoined at the top, still in the company of 
Tighe. So much we have from the guard and driver. Now, 
Mr. Boyle, ye must excuse me for failing to see where ye come 
into this story.” 

“ My lord,” exclaimed Boyle, “ I am Tighe. The name 
was me mother’s. . . . Yes, I admit I am living at a lodging 
in America Square under an asshumed name, and requestud 
your lordship to addriss your letter to a coffee-house, yes. . . . 
That I have preferred to pass as Tighe rather than as mysilf 
is asily explained. I have suffered misforchune. I stood me 
thryle as Boyle — Major Boyle — at Chester winter assizus 
for having the ill-luck to kill me man in a jule, my lord ; and, 
under the circumstances, I submit the incognito was excusable.” 

“ Ha, the Roodee murder case,” observed his lordship dryly. 

" My lord, I was acquittud ! ” 

“ The jury was discharged, as I remember, which is another 
matter. But I am not concerned to retry that issue, merely 
to discover how ye came into possession of my property. Ye 
have not replied to my point as to the presence of the man 
Venner, or Baskett.” 

“ ’Pon me sowl, I had forgot the existence of the creature ! ” 

” Yet ye have met him in London since.” 

No answer. The Irishman, seldom at a loss, found himself 
upon dangerous ground. It dawned upon him that, whilst 
watching his confederate, his lordship’s agents had been also 
keeping an eye upon himself. The point was pressed. 

“ Come, sir, ye saw the man arrested at the county boundary. 
Such an occurrence is sufficiently remarkable in itself : ye 
surely had some natural curiosity as to the reason. You 
must have been aware that the fellow was no company for an 
honest man, to say nothing of a gentleman ; he lay under 
suspicion, for he was searched.” 


MONDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 129 

“ Not in my presence,” returned the other, clutching at 
a straw. 

“ Tchaw ! Why palter? Cannot ye see that your tale 
will not pass ? From your own accounts, which are discrepant. 
Ye travelled under an assumed name with a person of ill- 
character, a fellow once in my service as chaplain — mine — 
who abused his opportunities to rob me. You did not know 
this ? I am not so sure of that, sir, but your knowledge or 
ignorance is immaterial ; the fact remains. Also, that whilst 
the thief was being searched the stolen property was in your 
pockets. It smells of covin, sir ; you admit it was there and 
offer an explanation which no sane man will accept. I 
would have ye to understand that the evidence I have in my 
hands would convict you ; the punishment might be death, 
sir, or it might be whipping and branding. I just mention 
the alternatives to show ye the predicament in which ye stand, 
Mr. Tighe, or Boyle.” 

The Irishman stared, but had not a word to say. My 
lord continued : 

“You wish me to regard your meeting with Baskett as 
fortuitous. Ye have forgotten his existence, ye say ; yet 
ye have been seen in his company twice within this past week. 
You are believed to have supplied him with money. And 
now, after several conferences with this rogue, and after three 
weeks of delay, ye come forward and offer restoration of part 
of the stolen property.” 

“ Part ? ” echoed Boyle harshly, “ ’Pon me salvation there 
lies all that iver I found upon the thief. I swear ut ! ” 

“ Upon which thief, sir ? We have only evidence of the 
existence of the one whom ye accompanied to London. As 
for this alleged footpad of yours, do ye ask me to believe that 
ye killed the wretch out of hand, rifled the corpse, and left it 
on the road ? u 

“ Just that, me lord,” replied Boyle, marvelling at his 
I own self-command. This man could make him or break him ; 

! he must stomach it ; but his heart seemed bursting. 

“ ’Tis singular that ye did not breathe a word of your 
exploit to the guard or the coachman. ’Tis more singular 
that they heard no shots. 'Tis most singular that no corpse 
was found, sir : of that I have the coroner’s assurance.” 

Boyle’s head swam. What was this ? His story had been 
known and sifted before he had told it. This amazing little 
! man must have agents everywhere. Had the pot-boy at 
Pickle-Herring spied upon him ? Had he blabbed in his 
cups ? Had Baskett peached ? Was his lordship lying to 
I him ? His lordship was speaking again coldly and pointedly. 

“ Come, Mr. Tighe, or Boyle, where are the rest of my gems ? 

9 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


130 

These, in point of numbers, may be three-fourths ol my loss, 
but in value do not represent a quarter of it. All the finer 
stones, the best-cut and larger intagli, are missing. Where are 
they, sir ? I must have them.” 

Poor Boyle’s brain was spinning. Talk of fortune’s malice ! 
Whoever heard of the like of this ? A gentleman despoils a 
thief at the risk of his life and is forthwith accused of being 
in possession of stolen property, and bidden account for things 
of which he had never so much as suspected the existence. 
Normally he was a man of ready speech, loud, plausible, and 
quick of invention ; but now he found his imagination 
bankrupt and his tongue tied. Meanwhile he was painfully 
conscious that the cold gray eyes behind the glasses were bent 
upon his confusion, and now the deliberate tones began 
again. 

“ What ? No explanation — not even a reply ? I had 
thought better of the resources of you Irish adventurers. I 
fear Mr. Tighe, or Boyle, is but poorly equipped for the part 
he is playing. 

“ However, I will no longer detain ye, sir ; for the present, 
at any rate, ye may go. Ye will understand that the valu- 
ables ye are secreting are not marketable ; they are of interest 
to some few cognoscenti only, worthless to the vulgar. Ye 
cannot pass them ; their possession will certainly betray you. 
But to me they are priceless. I will admit to you that I have 
had you in the hollow of my hand for three weeks. As you 
have seen, your movements, your associates, your intimate 
conversations are all here ” — the speaker tapped the papers in 
front of him with his knuckle. “ Yes, we are aware of your 
hopes, ye are applying for employment.” Boyle slightly 
started. “ Now, sirrah, I will go so far as to condone your 
felony, and even to consider the question of your future, so 
soon as the rest of your plunder is replaced in my hands. 

“ In the meantime, as the companion of a thief, you lie under 
vehement suspicion, and will be watched. Ye may go.” 

The luckless Boyle found his way into Piccadilly half blinded 
with fury at insults which he was unable to resent. His 
first and immediate need was a victim. The man was in the 
mood to pick a quarrel with a blind beggar. By the time 
he had walked a mile some discrimination had returned to 
him. Of the two persons upon whom it was possible to 
inflict some of the mortifications from which he was suffering, 
he would spare his wife. Baskett it should be, and after a 
brisk round to baffle a possible pursuer, he broke in upon 
the evening meditations of the Reverend Octavius in no 
urbane humour. 

“ Soho, Mr. Ananias, ye have been keeping back part of the 


MONDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 


131 

price, have ye ? (Oh, I have a scripture or two at me tongue’s 
end as well as you canting Protestants.) What’s that ? Ye 
have not the bigger part of the what-d’ye-call-’ems upon ye ? 
The jeuce ye haven’t ! Then who has ? Out wid ut ! ” 
taking the wretch by the throat, “ Not that dead thief ; ye 
saw me strip him.” 

In two minutes — and most uncomfortable minutes they were 
for the clergyman — Boyle had convinced himself that his 
confederate knew no more of the missing gems than he did 
himself. “ Faith, I’ve half-throttled the baste, and exhibitud 
could steel. ’Tis shaking an impty purse I am ; he has not the 
things by him. But, all the same, ’tis a poor wake baste, and 
not the sort that I’d trust to drink fair in the dark.” Com- 
muning thus with himself whilst his victim moaned in a 
corner, the master turned suddenly upon his slave. 

“ Your Rivrence, ’tis time that we partud. Your prisince 
is compromising to a gintleman. ’Tis also offensuv to honust 
min. The law has its eye upon ye this night, and will have its 
claw upon ye to-morrow. What ? Shtop that hullabaloo ! 
There is just the faintust chance for ye. I will discind to 
particulars. Listen ; three roads lie before ye. Ye have your 
choice to take the King’s shilling ; to take a lep off the wharf ; 
or — to be taken and hanged. Fwhat’s that ? Ye cannot 
make up your mind ? Thin we’ll spin for ut upon the method 
of odd-man-out. The river or the gallows ! Heads for 
Tyburn ! ” He tossed a guinea, his last. “ Heads it is ! ” 
Baskett’s teeth chattered. 

“ Now, me frind, pray to Whativer is fond of ye, for the 
choice this time lies bechune the hempen cravat and a marching 
regiment, and the Lord He knows which is the worse. (By 
the same token there’s a recruiting sergeant in the tap-room 
of the Cumberland Arms at the lane’s end.) Heads for Tyburn 
again ! . . . . Tails it is ! Up ye get, and along with me. 
I’ll be seeing this job through before I sleep. Ah, now ! Have 
no care for yer duds ; ’tis that small valise will hang ye yet, 
and ’tis little need ye’ll have for chashubles in the line.” 

An hour later Sergeant Oakey of the 56th Foot was drinking 
to the health of the latest addition to His Majesty’s forces, 
whilst the watch upon his rounds had found upon Pickle- 
Herring Wharf the wig, gown, and bands of a clergyman wound 
into a bundle and containing a note to the effect that poverty 
and persecution had driven the Reverend Octavius Baskett, 
Bachelor of Arts, to seek that justice at the Bar of God which 
had been denied him by his patron the Viscount Duddingstone. 

“ ’Tis a nate touch that last,” soliloquised the author of 
this flight of fancy, “ and if it should appear in the News will 
hilp me to get even with my lord. Merciful powers, what 


132 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


a riptile is that same ould haythen ! Will I iver see the day 
whin I can wipe that intoirely out ? 

“ ’Tis a thought hard upon His Rivrence. Life in the ranks 
is not a giddy whirl of bouncheous luxury. I’m thinking 
’twill take two corporals and their canes behind him to get 
the crathur up to the palisades. They had better use him on 
shipboard, where he can’t run far. I am well shut of him ; 
but — what’s to do nixt ? ” The question was a poser. The 
man saw no comfort anywhere, and sate late over his drink. 
After midnight he affrighted his young bride by stumbling 
upstairs to the room in which she had passed long hours of 
loneliness and suspense only to find her husband, when he 
came, in no condition for her society. 

It was the poor girl’s first experience of a man far advanced 
in liquor ; a horrifying initiation. He snored at last. She 
watched him from a chair, wrapped in her cloak and aching 
with cold and blows. God pity such wives ! Death hath no 
tragedy to compare with what life holds for them. Poor 
Sue, a three-weeks bride, and already arrived at this. God 
pity thee indeed ! He does. There shall be ending, complete, 
swift, and final, to this bleak chapter of thy hitherto gently 
nurtured life. But four more days of it ; bear up ! But 
thou dost not know, nor wouldst thou welcome deliverance 
— yet ! 


CHAPTER IV 


TUESDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE. MAJOR TIGHE FISHES WITH 

LIVE BAIT 

The doors of the anteroom would not be opened for half 
an hour. Tighe and his young bride sauntered in the Park, 
killing time, and presently came to an anchor upon a seat, 
nor felt chilly ; for although it was but the second week of 
the New Year, the air was extraordinarily mild, a fall of snow 
In November having been followed by the greenest Christmas 
that ever fattened English churchyards. The weatherwise 
predicted a genial winter ; within a week they were to see 
the insetting of an arctic three months. 

Sue was ill at ease ; the poor girl was overdressed — her 
husband’s doing : it needed all her grace and beauty to carry 
off the knots of riband of his choosing. Her timid protests 
had been overruled. She knew not why, upon this day of all 
days, instead of leaving her to await his return in their dull 
city lodging, he had dizened her thus and carried her west 
with him. Their sight-seeings were over, and the first bright- 
ness of her pleasure in him, and of his in her. He had grown 
harsh within these last few days, and she had learned to tremble 
at his home-comings. She guessed that things were going 
ill : she knew from chance-dropped words that his memorial 
remained unanswered, and that his attempts to secure an 
interview had failed. So much was divined : her master per- 
mitted no questions. 

He sate beside her upon the Park-seat moody and silent, 
caressing his chin with the knob of his cane, watching the 
thin stream of foot-passengers tempted abroad by the un- 
seasonable warmth and mellow beauty of the afternoon. 

Fashionable London was out of town, but the times were 
anxious, and men who had reasons for wishing to know how 
matters were going, lingered up, or paid flying visits to the 
capital. Versailles was moving at last. At the War Office in 
time of war there was always something to be imparted, 
learnt, or picked up by a King’s friend, or one of his depend- 


i33 


I 34 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


ants, and something to be hoped for by less fortunate mortals. 
The strollers in the Park were of various classes and ranks. 
Chief Clerks and Assistant Under-Secretaries walked briskly 
and singly, or loitered two-by-two, enjoying the last of the 
delicate pale sunshine, postponing their work until candle- 
lighting time, whilst their juniors within-doors fenced with 
rulers and betted upon forthcoming cock-fights. 

There were beggars too, but only privileged ones — old soldiers, 
friends of the Park keepers ; a cast-off black servant with a 
cough might shiver dumbly to death upon a bourne-stone 
unrelieved. The sight met your eye a dozen times in a day 
during winter. It shocked countrymen new to London ; the 
Cockney was used to it. Our ancestors were hard of heart. 

“ Bedad, we’ve wastud a crown’s-worth of fal-lals, me 
gyur’rl, and, what’s worse, another day,” grumbled the Major. 
Sue, about to reply with some hopeful counsel, bit her lip and 
shook down her veil beneath the too-pointed notice of a passing 
grandee. The gentleman, handsomely dressed in a claret- 
coloured coat, white tie-wig and laced hat, was dawdling by, 
his gloved fingers within the arm of a taller and more plainly 
attired man in bottle green. The two strutted and swung 
their full-skirted coats, peacocking in the mode of their day and 
order ; both wore swords. Claret Coat was well in advance of 
the fashion ; a clouded cane, gold-headed, dangled by a silken 
tassel from a ruffled wrist ; the hand toyed with a tortoise-shell 
quizzing-glass ready for use. The two passed and repassed, 
deep in talk, and once paused for a minute, still chatting, with 
their backs to the bench occupied by Tighe and Sue. 

“ Dev’lish mild for the season, Jenky,” remarked Claret 
Coat, ogling a passing woman. 

Bottle Green shrugged slightly at the interruption ; there 
was a note of asperity in his voice — “ as ravelled a skein as ever 
a fellow was asked to set finger to ” 

“ Accept it as a compliment, man. He didn’t send for me.” 

“ He knew ye better, March ; ye wouldn’t have touched 
the business with that stick. Germaine has ruined our 
affairs in America. On the strength of his services, as I must 
suppose ” 

“ Minden ? ” inquired Claret Coat with malice, taking 
snuff. 

“Ah, possibly ; on the strength of his experiences in the 
field, shall we say ? This nincompoop, with Barrington to 
help him, has amused himself with planning combined move- 
ments at the seat of war. I found my table-drawers full of 
miraculous strategy. Conceive, I beg you ! Burgoyne was to 
advance upon Bennington, where he was bidden to expect 
Howe with supplies and reinforcements. Observe now (but 


TUESDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE 


135 


ye are not attending !) : Burgoyne marches, and as ye know, 
is cut up at Saratoga by that renegade Gates (an Englishman 
born : I swear it gives me the creeps), whilst Howe, who was 
planning fetes champ etres in Philadelphia, never moves out of 
his lines. Why should he ? he asks ; and with reason. My 
predecessor had forgot to sign the despatch apprising him of 
his part in the affair. Worse, if possible, the fools had sent 
the powder intended for Philadelphia to New York, conceiving 
apparently that the towns lie as neighbourly as London and 
Westminster. Now, what say ye to that ? There’s Germaine 
for you ! ” 

“ George is a man of pleasure,” observed Claret Coat, as 
though he had mentioned a recognised profession, honourable, 
but incompatible with high office. “ I am another. We 
do wrong to touch business. A person of condition should 
stick to his metier. A Man of Fashion now has abundant 
calls upon — ” his eye wandered, he had caught sight of Sue 
again, and was fixing her through his glass with an insolent 
intentness. The girl wondered at her husband’s complaisance, 
and still more, when, as the two personages moved away, she 
caught the remark, “ A pretty face, that, begad ! — too fine 
a woman altogether for a copper-headed Irishman, eh, Jenky ? 

. . . tell ye what, . . . even hundred . . . kisses me within 
. . . week.” The men were moving, the voice faded. 

“ Oh, Con, come away,” she whispered, shaken with anger, 
but found this often impatient husband of hers unexpectedly 
cool. 

“ Be still, ye small fool ! ” he murmured excitedly, his eyes 
a-glitter. “ ’Tis the Lord Mar’rch (His Grace the Juke o’ 
Queensberry, that is now), and ’tother will be Mister Jenkinson, 
or I’m mistaken — Mister Secretary Jenkinson, begorrah, the 
man of all min that I’m thirsting dumbly to have spache with. 
Oh, the Juke and Jenkinson ! the Juke or Jenkinson ! both, or 
ayther ! Mother of Jasus ! in pity sind me foive little, swate, 
privut minutes with wan or the other of thim ! ” 

“ But, Con, dear, ye did not hear what the wretch said ? 
What could he mean ? ” 

“ Whisht ! be aisy, me dear ! ’Tis a man that cud make both 
our forchunes by a cock of his hat. ’Tis Mar’rch, me Lor’rd 
Mar’rch, I’m tellin* ye, the King’s frind ; and the other, the 
man in green, is the King’s War Minister himself ! 

“ Oh, Con, ye don’t say so ? ” exclaimed Sue, her indignation 
forgot in her zeal for her husband’s advancement, “ Run 
after him, dear ! ” 

“ In-throduce mesilf, is ut ? Faith, madam, ye’re wake in 
the science of diplomacy.” 

“ But, try ! Why not try ? Anything is better than sitting 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


136 

here and seeing the world go by us, and we growing poorer. 
If I were a man I would do — something ! ” 

“ Ye would, would ye ? ” replied Tighe, rolling in his seat. 
“Madam, I take ye at yer wor’rd. Yer husband is in 
throuble up to his withers : so much ye do know ; and, ’pon me 
sowl, I belave ’tis yerself must pull me out. Fwhat wud ye 
do for yer husband ? ” 

“ Anything, sir ! any- thing ! Try me!” She sprang to 
her feet. 

“ Done wid ye ! I accipt. Ye shall take this cover,” he 
took it from his pocket (ready written and sealed, Oh, Tighe, 
Tighe !) — “ This letter, I’m sayin,” to the Right Honourable 
Mr. Jenkinson, the King’s new Secretary at War, and ye shall 
exur’rt-yer powers of persueesion upon the man to injuce him 
to give yer husband employmint. D’ye see ? ” 

“ Oh, Con, how could I ? — alone ? Would it not be im- 
proper ? ” 

“ There ye go ! ” Tighe laughed savagely. “ Improper ? 
for a married leedy to address a gintleman upon her husband’s 
businuss, and with his consint ? and in a public offus ? Faith, 
’tis I’m the fool for taking ye sariously. Ye’re just a toy — 
an incumbrance.” 

“ I will go, sir,” said Sue humbly, biting a trembling lip. 
“ Indeed, I will do my best, sir ; but it seems somehow. . . . 
Oh, Con, I am so young ; do ye — are ye sure ye wish it ? ” 

“ Wish ut ? Indade I do that ! Who’s afraid ? Will the 
man be ating ye ? think ye, that ” 

“ Good-bye, sir ; wish me well.” 

“ All the luck in the wor’rld go with ye, me heart ! Re- 
mimber ’tis for yer husband, for me, that ye’re fighting. An’ 
don’t be lookin’ me in the face impty-handud ! I’ll await ye 
at the Par’rk gates ; they ’ll be shuttin’ this place for the 
night prisintly, I’m thinkin’.” 

Sue tripped away, her little heart beating courageously, 
strung to the proper pitch of responsibility. Fail she would 
not ; she would win him back to her ; warm his cooling 
affection by her success in his cause. She got her lesson by 
rote as she went ; ’twas for Mr. Jenkinson’s ear and for none 
other’s ; neither Under-Secretary nor Chief Clerk would she 
waste words upon. A personal interview was her demand, 
upon the most urgent private business. 

Her husband, biting his thumb-nail in keen suspense, 
watched her fade into the throng setting now towards the 
gates. He got a momentary impression, but of this he was 
not sure, of a claret coat moving in the same direction. 
Right or wrong, both figures were lost next moment in the 
falling dusk. 


TUESDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE 


*37 

The anteroom was packed, every seat occupied, and the 
best of its floor-space filled when Sue gained the door. She 
returned to the corridor and made her petition to a passing 
official, only to be redirected to the room which she had just 
left. The lady timidly represented, the man shrugged, and 
would have passed on, but for the increasing pressure of the 
crowd. He withdrew his attention, his eyes roved, were 
looking vacantly over her head ; suddenly they creased at 
the angles and filled with obsequious intelligence in response 
to recognition from some personage in the press. There was 
a light semitone, a low reply: “Yes, your lordship! cer- 
tainly, your Grace ! ” 

“ Permit me, good people ! ” At a new voice with the 
unmistakable note of authority the pressure relaxed, a key 
turned, a hinged panel opened, and some one behind Sue 
passed within. 

“ You may follow, madam,” whispered the janitor, di- 
recting the hesitating girl with his hand. The door closed 
behind her, she was for a moment in darkness, another panel 
admitted her to a twilit corridor, a latch clicked, a door upon 
the opposite side of the gangway opened, a portiere shook, 
some one was addressing her. 

“You wish to see Mr. Jenkinson, madam ? Gad ! ’tis 
fortunate, for ye have no appointment, I think. I am the 
gentleman ye seek. Permit me to precede ye.” The speaker 
was holding the portUre aside for her ; she stooped beneath 
his arm, and found herself in a lofty but narrow room, barely 
furnished and inadequately lit by a pair of wax candles in 
a sconce above a table supporting a standish, carafe, and 
tumbler. The curtain had fallen behind her again ; the latch 
gave a double click, due, as she later believed, to the shooting 
of a bolt. 

Slightly nervous and strange to her surroundings, she 
turned and searched the room with her eyes ; it was empty 
save for the minister who was advancing from the door into 
the ring of light cast by the sconce. Sue started, for here was 
the gentleman who had quizzed her in the Park. She had 
forgotten his name, but Con had not called him Jenkinson : 
but Con must have been mistaken, or she had mistaken Con. 
Here, at least, was the man whom her husband had com- 
missioned her to see : she had achieved her first step with 
astonishing ease. Her courage rose : hope sprang within 
her. The gentleman approached bowing. 

“ Madam, Mr. Jenkinson appreciates this condescension. 
His poor room is seldom so graced. What service may he 
have the honour of rendering to so charming a visitor ? ” 

He spoke with a sweet, deferential gravity altogether new 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


138 

to the girl, and whilst speaking had handed her to a chair 
beside the table, himself remaining standing, leaning lightly 
upon the board’s edge, bending toward her and somewhat 
above her, his strongly-marked, individual countenance 
fixed intently upon hers. This proximity was a thought 
too near for her taste, but might be the mode among the 
great, thought Sue. The man’s glittering eyes, as hard as 
agates, daunted her a little at first sight, but held hers, and 
when he spoke again it was so encouragingly and kindly, and 
withal so softly, as almost to set her at her ease. How could 
she ever have thought him rude ? (Within these weeks poor 
Sue had learned the existence of hyper-masculine terms and 
idioms permissible in the absence of women.) 

She had plunged into her story — her husband’s letter 
temporarily forgotten — a recital punctuated by her auditor’s 
“ La, nows,” and “ ’Fore Gad, madams.” It was all for 
Con. She did not spare her praise ; and at each encomium 
the minister murmured : “ So, indeed ? I’ll be sworn he 
is ! ” Things were going admirably, thought Sue. In a 
trice she found her diffidence gone, she trembled a little, 
but more with hope than agitation. This extraordinary man, 
still listening intently, had drawn yet nearer to her, was 
absently, as it seemed, stroking the small gloved hand which 
lay upon the table’s edge beside him. (Sue thought to 
withdraw it, but for some reason, or none, it did not seem 
easy ; yet, with an effort, withdraw it she did.) The minister 
was promising the finest things ; Con was a man of a thousand, 
a valuable public servant, an acquisition to the forces ; he 
should certainly be reinstated, promoted in time, indeed. 
But there was something behind, something conditional 
about these professions, something reserved : the issue lay 
with herself, it seemed. She did not understand. 

But Mr. Jenkinson was certainly most kind, too kind ; 
almost fatherly. (Sue had never known a father.) The 
white wig conveyed a paternal impression. 

He was very close indeed to her now, yet she had not 
noticed him move. She faltered beneath his close, unwinking 
scrutiny, but once and again he helped her out, suggesting 
words which she found herself adopting. Hitherto she had 
thought of her cause, of Con, now, and against her will, she 
began to think of Mr. Jenkinson. He was undersized and not 
regularly handsome; his countenance was too lean, too 
aquiline, too imperious, too deeply marked. The eyes were 
dominant, but the smile, when it came, was vivid and winning. 
His carriage had all the dignity and repose native Jo an assured 
position. He was high-bred to the polished nails of those 
long white hands. 


TUESDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE 


139 


1 

There certainly was no keeping eyes off him. Sue found 
herself staring, and blushed, yet could not withdraw her gaze, 
i Presently she was aware of the incipience of an over-wise, 

: masculine simper deforming the corners of that thin, hard 
mouth, a smile which never reached the eyes — eyes which 
seemed probing deeper and still deeper, through and behind 
•i her own, until they reached the back of her head. And 
then, all suddenly, as it seemed to her afterward, she was 
caught, taken, as the small fluttering bird is limed by the 
: twig to which it has trusted. With palsied will she sate 
| listening, acquiescent, all of her, save some deep-seated inner 
sense of rectitude which whispered its obstinate protest. 
What knew she of the awful occult power of the human 
1 will ? What do we know to-day ? Substantially the ques- 

I tion remains at the point at which Braid left it, his experi- 
ments verified but unexplained, possibly inexplicable. 

In Sue’s time this cult was still, as it has been from the 
dawn of human history, the stock-in-trade of witch-doctor 
and exorcist. Armed with its secret terrors, many a slave — 
for his little hour — has ruled a king. Periodically it has raged 
like a pestilence in high places, until plain blunt manhood, 
determined and ruthless, has extirpated the pest by horrid 
punishment. Then for centuries the thing has been driven 
i under, forgotten, ignored, derided perhaps, or repudiated 
i altogether. 

The gipsy brought it back to us from the East. An Oxford 
scholar gave his life to learn it, says Glanvil ; he never came 
back. 

All down the ages one discerns a few dangerously gifted 
personalities who discovered unnamed powers in themselves 
and wrought dangerously, darkling, abusing their oppor- 
tunities and usually making grim enough endings. 

Under the Georges this by-path from the Tree of Know- 
ledge no longer led to the stake. Its very existence was denied 
by that Sadducee among the centuries, the eighteenth, and the 
initiated few were at liberty to practise at leisure, and in 
security, arts which the Man of Sense held to be absurd, non- 
existent, and impossible. 

No conceivable attitude upon the part of his dupes could 
have better pleased their master. Did a youth lose his 
inheritance at White’s, or a lady her honour at Vauxhall, 
their protestations of having been “ overlooked ” were re- 
ceived with contemptuous shrugs. We, of a less dogmatic 
| age, who, with an eye to the next discovery, decline to ridicule 
| what we fail to understand, may have our suspicions, as had 
some of his contemporaries, of that scorer of impossible points 
‘j in so many games, my Lord March. 


140 


the: chances of town 


It was an age when men, and women too, betted upon 
everything which could run or fight ; when men, and their 
women also, gamed as they have begun to game again to-day ; 
when fortunes were lost, and ancient estates exchanged hands 
upon the turn of a card ; when sons cajoled their mothers 
out of their jointures, or paid fancy usury upon post-obit 
bonds upon the lives of fathers not yet turned fifty ; when 
hosts rooked their guests, and guests cheated their hosts ; for 
there was much cheating, and in the highest circles, and the 
play of all who won consistently was jealously scrutinised. 
It was an age, too, of the loosest morals. The intentions of 
every man of fashion were doubted, and the movements of 
every marriageable girl hampered with precautions. 

From the dead level of this morass, towering above the 
heads, not only of the common herd of gamesters and bucks, 
of the women who came to the quinze-table with pams in their 
pockets, and of the bullies who would cheat an Eton boy out 
of his allowance, or inveigle a school-miss from the apron- 
string of a bribed duenna ; not over these alone, but over the 
heads, too, of the Rigbys and Stavordales, the Selwyns and 
the Sandwiches of graceless memories, arose two conspicuous 
eminences — the King, a lonely pinnacle of domestic virtue, 
and the Duke of Queensberry, the most symmetrical monu- 
ment of vice that England has produced for centuries. 

The man’s “ successes ” were innumerable and notorious : 
they were as bizarre as were his coups at play. It was as 
useless to warn a woman as to watch a card when “ Q.” was 
interested in either. He willed, they came to him. He willed, 
and the eyes of the most experienced, the most suspicious 
opponent were holden. He won, he was always winning ; 
he won year in, year out, watched, suspected, but never 
caught. 

With his sovereign he did as he chose. The men might 
have been supposed to be antipathetic, to have had not a 
taste in common ; but the most vicious rake in his kingdom 
was Lord of the Royal Bedchamber for twenty-eight years 
under eleven prime ministers, influencing, by means at which 
we can shrewdly guess, the infected mind of a doomed king 
to see in him the one man necessary for the well-being of his 
household and the stability of his throne, who was accordingly 
loaded with the fattest sinecures in the Royal gift. 

Such was the man who, in the maturity of his powers, in 
the seclusion of a half-lit room, was concentrating his every 
faculty to subjugate the benumbed will of an innocent girl 
one third his age. 

To what end ? — Sheer mischief belike : or shall one say 
'twas the itch of an amateur to practise his art and put his 


TUESDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE 


141 

power to the test ? So will your well-fed cat toy with and 
tease to the death the little red field-mouse which she cannot 
eat. 

There is an ennui that drives men to seek satisfaction in a 
feverish repetition of what has already bored them to the 
verge of disgust. There is a pride so insolent that it fires 
at the faintest hint of opposition ; a self-love so unappeasable 
that it must play the tyrant to a passing stranger upon the 
most trivial occasion ; which finds no antagonist too puny, 
or loath, no offence too petty, inadvertent, or excusable. 
The Duke was weary and proud. 

“ Did it drop its veil at me, then ? " he asked, with a 
Belial leer. “ I have never stood that from a woman, and 
never will. Ye must know, madam, that the Douglas never 
remits. I am waited for elsewhere, and can waste but a 
minute upon ye, but, punished ye shall be, and your penance 
shall be — to kiss me ! (Gad ! what lips, and what a cheek !) 
Ay, ye sail pree ma mou, dearie — as we say on Tweed." 

Still panting rebelliously, painfully, still unable to rise 
or to change the posture of a limb or to release her eyes, Sue 
listened to her own voice, speaking as from the other side of a 
partition, and heard the minister’s questions as through 
curtains. Had she her card ? She found Con’s letter in 
her hand. How it had come there she knew not : she had no 
sense of volition, nor had consciously searched for the cover. 

“Ye place this in my hands, you do. Say so again, please." 
The minister, bending low over her, his breath playing upon 
her passive face, took the memorial without a glance at its 
superscription. In the transference his fingers touched hers 
again. She shivered. Oh, what was this numbing, con- 
trolling power ? (What indeed, Sue ? We are still asking 
the question, and still the answer delays.) Was everything 
receding, lapsing, falling from her ? Not everything. Deep 
within her some basal Personality stubbornly persisted, 
ceaselessly reiterating its “ Make haste to help me, oh God ! " 
(So weak women upon the rack have reiterated, unconquer- 
ably resolved, and died unconquered.) 

Her face was marble, her eyes were set, but the man was 
conscious of a check, and knew himself defied. His tempera- 
ment betrayed him. His voice, soft hitherto, if penetrating, 
grew harsh. ’Twas a blunder ; one of those controlling cords 
snapped. With a supreme effort, with a wrench, with the 
concurrent spasms of her physical and moral nature in revolt, 
she uttered a muffled shriek, and flung up her gloved left 
hand (her right was still powerless) in some instinctive move- 
ment or repulsion or defence. It was caught ; she strove to 
withdraw it ; the unbuttoned glove slid ; the ring, her wedding- 


I 4 2 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


ring, slid with it. Something awoke within her : with a 
shriller cry and a gush of tears she was her own woman again. 
The nightmare cerements slipped from her limbs, the mys- 
terious bond parted : she leapt back. The minister retained 
the glove ; the ring, bright and small, fell from its warm 
hollow and rolled upon the carpet between them. 

“ Pick — it — up — that ring, that ring, that ring ! So ! 
Now give it to me — to me ! Ye must, ye must ! Now kiss 
me ! ” 

“ / — will — not ! ” panted poor Sue valiantly. 

The sorcerer crammed letter and glove into the pockets of 
a brocaded waistcoat, and stepping swiftly toward the girl, 
hung his jewelled hands before her eyes. The twinkling 
fingers dazzled her ; a great diamond shot blue stabs of light, 
white, red and straw-colour, white, red and — ah ! — the Power 
was overcoming her again, she clutched the ring, her ring, 
in her clammy palm as a talisman, but again the circle of 
visible objects was contracting to a small yellow disc, in the 
midst of which were those baleful, unsmiling eyes. Now the 
fingers were still, but the voice was speaking again with an 
accent of confident authority. 

The room was one of a series of apartments reserved for 
interviews with callers of distinction, to whom hours of 
attendance amid the crowd of inventors and place-hunters in 
the general anteroom would have proved irksome. Closets 
they were called, and were approached by a private stair 
and corridor, whilst communicating en suite by other doors 
in the wainscot. 

This my lord duke had overlooked. A panel at the other 
end of the room swung inward, a voice was speaking softly. 
“ The minister expects ye, sir. Will ye please to await him 
here ? ” Some one entered, the panel closed. 

This would never do : his grace was prompt. 

“You have been misdirected, sir ; this room is engaged ; 
be pleased to withdraw.” 

But the newcomer mutely held his ground. He was a 
slight, erect man, of a military bearing and alert intelligence, 
who was aware that he, at any rate, was in his right 
place. 

But to the duke it was of the first necessity that this intruder 
should go, and go instantly, and without demur, or the spell 
would snap again. Queensberry, least patient of men, spoke 
again, and with ill-curbed asperity : he could neither intermit 
his experiment nor declare his rank. Hampered thus, and 
unable to give his full attention to either, his concentration 

relaxed, his eye wandered. “ Be d d to ve fellow 

Go I* 


TUESDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE 


143 

At those strident accents the last strands parted ; Sue was 
free. The yellow disc expanded, she saw the man before her 
as he was — a shrill, gesticulating person with fiercely working 
features. She hated, detested, loathed him. 

“ No, don't go, please ! Don’t leave me here ! Help, oh, 
help ! ” she wailed, recoiling from her enemy like a released 
spring, and turning towards the intruder. 

“ Silence, woman. I forbid ye to speak. Now, fellow, 
whoever ye are, go ! D’ye hear me ? ’Twill be the worse 
for ye ! ” 

The intruder, keenly observant from the other end of the 
room, a blur against the dark panel, still made no reply. 
That he was vastly surprised at such a scene in a Government 
office goes without saying, but it would seem that here was 
a man over whom surprises and novel positions had not their 
customary paralysing effects. Possibly in other lands he had 
witnessed feats of eastern magic and will-control. Swiftly he 
j made decision, swiftly acted ; lightly passing without a word 
to the table, he secured the carafe, filled the tumbler and 
dashed its contents in the face of the thaumaturgist, remark- 
ing : “ A fit, is it ? — yes, plainly a fit. Be seated, sir, ’twill 
pass. Permit me. . . . Ah, a convulsionary, is he ? ” 

His grace stepped back spluttering curses, rubbing the 
water from his eyes with his left cuff, and fumbling for the 
^ cane which dangled from his right. He found it and swung 
it aloft, but his antagonist, cooler, readier, and more adroit, 
had stepped within guard, and had him by both wrists, ay, 
and swung him over his knee and forced his shoulders down 
1 upon the table and held him pinioned. 

A contemporary, who knew his grace, has left it upon 
record that “ Old Q. swore like ten thousand troopers.” In 
the plenitude of his powers, and with such excuse, we may 
t take it that he was not below his reputation. The room rang : 
i the girl fled shrieking around it, seeking exit, stopping her 
ears, but already supplied with a legion of expletives which 
1 would inhabit an unwilling memory during life, and cast up 
. in her dreams. 

“ Hillo ! What’s all this ? Who’s here ? Who are ye, 
madam ? What make ye here ? Begone to the devil ! 
What ! is’t you, March ? ” The minister himself, Mr. Secre- 
tary Jenkinson, was in the room, a cool, hard, laborious man, 

, who could decide and act, but who never quarrelled : this 
j afternoon’s episode was to test to its uttermost the pliancy 
and temper of his metal. Closing the door upon the flight of 
the girl, to avoid scandal, he forced himself between the 
struggling men. 

“ March ! — Queensberry ! — My Lord Duke, I say ! — stop 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


*44 

this uproar ! Remember yourself, and me. Ye cannot fight 
here. Put up that sword.” 

With a wrench and a shudder the frantic little man got 
himself partially in hand, and stepped back, getting his breath 
and resettling his wig and ruffles. 

“ Painful disorders, fits, Mr. Jenkinson,” chirrupped Major 
Justin. Another sip of water, sir ? My lord, is it ? ” 
refilling the tumbler with a steady hand and offering it with 
a bow. 

His grace took it with a hand that shook, smiling wanly, 
and held it to lips that twitched, his eye glittering above the 
rim of the glass. He was fighting himself — a losing battle. 
He dashed the tumbler from him — at Justin, indeed, whom it 
missed. The storm of shrill curses began again, again his 
weapon was out, and thrice he flung himself upon Jenkinson 
in futile efforts to break through to his enemy. The banked-up, 
smoky fire put out a long pale tongue of flame, which lit the 
dark end of the room and the frantic gestures of the duke 
with an infernal illumination. 

“ It points to blood-letting,” observed Major Justin, criti- 
cally observant of the symptoms, his hands behind him, 
imperturbably addressing the minister. 

“ Insolent blackguard, ye shall fight me here — now ! No, 
no, stand aside, Jenkinson. Ye mean well, I dare say, 
but I’ll be crossed by no man alive. Don’t touch me sir, 
or — — ” 

“ Absurd ! Pardon me a moment, Major,” said the 
minister, taking charge of the situation with a firmer hand. 

- ‘ Come, March. ’ ’ He linked his arm in the arm of the challenger 
and almost forcibly withdrew him to the hearth, whence 
Justin, despite himself, caught fragments of murmured 
counsel. 

“ Amazing behaviour — insanity, I may surely call it. 
Exposure — ye don’t fear ? Oh, a King’s friend may do any- 
thing in reason ; but what if this gets round to George him- 
self ? My man, here, is commanded to the Presence, he 
meets me by appointment, we are due at the Privy Closet. 
Can I present the fellow with a hole in him ? Or, what it 
would be more like to come to — your heart’s blood on his 
weapon ? ( — noted swordsman — his trade, ye fool !) Come, 

March, reason, my friend, reason ! And, a word in your ear ; 
we can’t stand assignations in our rooms — not pass — appeal 
to your better self — friendship.” 

But the demon in possession was ill to exorcise ; the madman, 
acquiescent for a moment, suddenly stiffened, withdrawing 

his arm and turning upon his heel. “ Here, you ! ” he 

cried. 


TUESDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE i 45 

Justin, dapper, grave, and wholly himself, was at the minis- 
ter’s side with suggestions. 

“ Still irresponsible ? Tut, tut ! Call in assistance ? 
Could not prescribe or exhibit personally, but have been 
considered fair at phlebotomy. Lancet best, of course, but 
unnecessary in emergencies. Have sometimes used the point,” 
touching his side-arm. “ Should be pleased to operate now, 
or — later.” 

Mysterious is the power of the voice ! Who knows not a 
certain pitch that catches the breath short at the tonsils and 
sends the blood pumping to the head ? Or that other tone 
which, before the close of a third sentence, exasperates the 
nerves, not to anger, but to an intolerable weariness, so that 
one is fain to arise and flee ? Other tones we know, buoyant, 
birdlike, golden, ineffable, which draw special trains to town 
from distant centres, keep men standing en queue in the slush, 
and are worth untold guineas per minute. 

Justin’s voice was sedative. The delicately veiled accept- 
ance of consequences with which he had concluded was so 
cleanly non-provocative as to act as a cold sponge upon the 
nape of his already cooling adversary. My lord duke, some- 
what late, and rather inadequately, recognised a novel force. 
This friend of Jenkinson’s, this small, precise fire-eater, must 
be the self-made man, the ex-gentleman volunteer, the latest 
sensation from the East, of whom the drawing-rooms were 
buzzing, the louder that the fellow declined nine-tenths of 
his invitations. This surely would be the prodigy from the 
India House, in whom, amid the general wreck of existing 
military reputations, some descried a second Wolfe, or Clive. 

No ; this was not a man to be pistolled or pinked with im- 
punity. Nor was this, perhaps, an especially good cause of 
quarrel. My lord did not want for ability; he was an extra- 
ordinarily able man indeed, who deliberately misused his parts. 
He found himself. 

££ I thank you, sir. I am already better . . . myself again, 
in fact ... I conceive that I owe ye ” 

Justin bowed, but Jenkinson, already drawing freer breath, 
broke in hastily and loudly, talking fast, anything that came. 
Leading his man from the room, he closed and locked the door 
they passed. His rattle dropped to a whisper. ££ No excuses — 
I saw what I saw. ’Tis his way, — inexplicable ! The sex is 
wax in his hands. I anticipate it will end in trouble some 
day. But in my private closets ! — monstrous. I’ll not have 
it. An abuse of the entree. Ye acted with extraordinary 
tact, sir ; I commend you, envy your nerve. Wish I could 
congratulate you, but that would not be honest. March — 
the duke, I mean, never pardons opposition to his whims. 

io 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


146 

The man has a train of bullies at his beck — half-pays : ye 
know the sort. I am bound to warn ye ; I will do what I 
may. Did he catch your name, I wonder ? ” 

“ I will do myself the honour of leaving my card at his 
grace’s door,” said Justin with quiet decision (and he did). | 
But the minister cried out upon such a betise. “ Don’t dream 
for an instant that he would meet ye — in person, that is. I 
doubt if he would go out with me. Oh, brave enough ; he has i 
given his proofs, I believe ; but, how put it ? — he values i 
himself — not our clay, ye understand. Let me get you out 
of the country, sir. Why not apply for one of our new regi- 
ments ? — yes, presently, when I give ye the signal. I know 
his Majesty’s little ways. The corps fill slowly, I own, but 
we might draft to hasten matters, and I really think I could 
promise ye the second on the roster. What say ye ? ‘ Private 

affairs ?’ ” The great man shrugged slightly at so fine an 
offer refused, it untied his hands ; scores of well-backed men 
awaited his nod, would leap at the chance. “ Well, well, 
ye shall at least give me your word, sir, to come to me if this 
affair involves ye in trouble.” 

Yes, upon the whole it would be well to keep in touch 
with this self-contained, unimaginative, politely inflexible 
piece of soldierhood, a fellow who for twenty years had been 
taking his risks with quiet efficiency and simple courage which 
made his finest work seem commonplace to the gallery and 
to himself — a man who had never dressed a report, who had 
never heard of Don Quixote, and who would have been deeply 
and silently offended at being likened to a knight-errant. 

Justin, no fool, was aware of the value of the offer which he 
had waived ; he bowed low and repeatedly. Now that the 
scene was over, and well over, he was surprised to find his 
cheek-bones warm. It was a dozen years since he had been 
so near to saying the word and doing the thing which, under 
the pagan ethic of the day, only blood could expiate. 

But for once his grace (who had inherited the duchy in 
the preceding August, and was still “ March ” to his old 
friends) was better than his reputation. Left to his own 
reflections, he had sworn himself black in the face in frenzies 
of profanity, broken his cane, and burned his wig, and, then — 
or thus — as is the way with the passionate, had found relief ; 
so paradoxical are the processes of psychology. When, an 
hour or two later, at his dressing-table, his valet showed him 
a letter and a glove discovered in the pockets of his master’s 
walking suit, his grace was pleased to chuckle. Nay, he 
broke seal, and ran a careless eye over the humble and loyal 
memorial of Cornelius Boyle, late major of the 41st Foot, 
reciting his services and praying His Majesty’s Honour- 




TUESDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE 


I 47 

able Secretary at War for employment in His Majesty’s 
forces. 

Having read, the duke sipped his chocolate and fell to using 
his toothpick. This Boyle he supposed to be the doughty 
little fellow who had handled him, husband of the woman 
possibly ; he recalled something about a ring, much else was 
hazy (he had certainly let himself go) ; and presently, 
having cursed himself thrice for a fool and a ninny, knowing 
himself to be neither, fell a-musing. “ The woman fought 
well — never knew one fight better ; yet I had her beaten 
when the husband came on the scene. After that, begad ! 
’twas a case for Monsieur Mesmer himself, and his electric 
fluid. I must ask him what was the right practice ; ’twas 
beyond me. But for this cursed war I’d start for Paris to- 
morrow. Still, I bear ’em no malice. Here’s for doing a good 
turn to ’em — the first man and the first woman who ever 
stood up to me ! ” He pursed thin lips and, nodding, clapped 
his hands, and caught his valet’s eye, pointing to a Sevres 
standish, and taking quill, scrawled across the memorial, 
“ Dear Jenky, oblige my friend, and you’ll oblige Yours, Q.” 

“ Let that go to the War Office.” He fell to pondering 
again. “ He’ll accept it as the amende. Your new placeman 
is easily appeased.” 

“ He is, indeed, your grace,” murmured the servant auto- 
matically, without understanding a word, his mind at work 
upon the missing wig, a lost perquisite. 

Poor little Sue had fled from the building in a passion of 
tears, the mortifications of failure forgotten in the stress of 
a shocking experience and unendurable insults. She reached 
the Park gates just as they were closing. Her husband was 
awaiting her, her face told him all that he cared to know — 
she had failed. The brutality of his snarl came near to 
provoking her to resentment. 

“ Oh, Con, ye shouldn’t have sent me. Those wicked, 
bad, detestable men ! Oh, that wretch in the purple 
! coat ! ” 

“ Me lor’rd juke ? Ye saw him ? Ye had spache wid 
him ? Ye giv’ him me letter ? What said the man to ut ? 
Quick!” 

41 Your — letter ? Oh ! ” she stood exploring : she had for- 
gotten what she had done with it during those moments of 
tranced subjection. 

“ My letter, madam ! — yes, just that. For what did I sind 
ye to him — to make love to him ? Where’s your ring ? ” 

In the confusion of her flight the poor child had not re- 
placed it. She dived in her pocket again, found, and timidly 


148 THE CHANCES OF TOWN 

set it upon her finger whilst plunging into a roundabout, 
breathless recital of her adventure. 

Her husband listened grimly with shot-out under lip, more 
bull-doggish than his wont, striding eastward through the 
darkening streets, Sue hurrying breathlessly beside him. 

“ A loikely shtory ! Fwhat d’ye take me, madam, that ye 
ixpict me to swallow ut ? ” 

“ Con ! ” 

“ Mister Tighe, if you please. I am Con to me frinds, 
and ’twould seem that yerself is not wan of thim this tide. . . . 
As dur’rty a trick as iver was played me by a woman. ’Tis 
yersilf has had the opporchunity of a lifetime, and fooled ut 

away. I mane ut. And, begad ! I’ll ” He half swung 

toward the shrinking girl, his brutal hands emerging from 
his pockets, his great chin thrown forward truculently. 

They were beneath a dim, yellow hanging-lamp near Charing 
Cross at the moment ; the street was dark, and few were afoot, 
for although the places of business had not closed for the day, 
there were no customers going or coming. So threatening 
was the Irishman’s attitude, and so harsh his tone, that a 
tall, hawk-nosed young fellow in military undress who was 
passing shortened his stride and hesitated. 

Sue’s courage rose ; there should be no scene. 

“ A dish of tea, sir, did ye say ? Delightful ! I am dropping.** 
She slipped her hand through her husband’s arm. The loiterer 
wavered, looked hard upon her and passed on. 

“ Tay, is ut ? 1 11— 1 11 1 

“ Not here, Con, dear ! ** 


» 


CHAPTER V 


WEDNESDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 

We must pay one more visit to my Lord Duddingstone, whom 
we left in no placable humour. 

“ ’Fore George ! ” he exclaimed, discussing with Walpole 
the brazen behaviour of Boyle, and his prospects of recover- 
ing his lost gems, “ Such impudence turns my very stomach 
— a rogue steals my horse and then claims my gratitude and 
patronage for restoring the saddle. I should dearly love to 
hang the rascal.” 

“ And lose your intagli ? Have patience, my friend. 
There are eighteen of your finest still at large, you say ; and 
not one of the eighteen can be so much as shown — (shown, 
observe) — but ye will presently be apprised of it. Come, 
man, there are eighteen good reasons for preserving the equal 
mind in adversity. But, no snatching ! Apply for warrants, 
and into Thames they go. Think of that plasma nereid, 
man, returned to her native element : a splash, a gleam, and 
there she will lie, deep in ooze beneath the anchors, dead 
cats, and the rest of it, until judgement day.” 

“ Good heavens, Walpole, don’t suggest such horrors ; 
ye are playing upon my nerves ; I swear ye are, and ’tis not 
friendly,” blurted my lord, limping around the room in 
agony, his face drawn in piteously comic grimaces, for chagrin 
had brought upon him premonitory twinges of his gout. 

This was upon the Tuesday, the day following the recovery 
of the less valuable stones, a recovery which whetted appetite 
and exasperated the pangs of loss. 

How sardonically mournful are the tears of your millionaire ! 
The wailings and pulings of a poor human creature surrounded 
by every single thing which gold can buy, who is clamouring 
for something which it will not. The present writer was once 
sole witness of such a scene ; genuine, honest snuffles and 
salt drops, testimonies to the misery of an enormously wealthy 
personage deprived of the one small thing upon which he had 
set his little heart. Parks and country seats he possessed, 


149 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


150 

broad acres by the thousand in this county and in that, 
many an acre beside of house-roofs let to excellent tenants, 
and stocks and shares beyond estimation. Good health, too, 
was his portion, a loving wife, dutiful children and faithful 
servants. The man’s position and lot in life were ideal, me- 
thought ; I think so still. He had everything : but it was 
not enough. There was a fly in the ointment that he loved, 
nor could a thousand uncontaminated gallipots appease him, 
nor smooth his rumpled locks. There was yet one ripe, red 
apple high overhead, and all the loaded shelves in his fruit- 
houses were unable to slake his thirst. Rather, let us say, 
the top brick was still upon the chimney of his ambition, nor 
could he by any means come by that top brick. How the 
man had striven and clambered ! With what dexterous 
combinations of ropes and kites and ladders had he essayed ! 
In vain, there was the brick, and there was he, and never 
in this life, as he at length recognised, was that dirty, sooty 
trophy to be his. So he wept in my presence, precisely with 
the snubs and heavings of the child sorrowing over his broken 
toy. Dollies upon dollies, and tin soldiers upon tin soldiers 
lay around him, but, no ; their smiles and gorgeous regi- 
mentals were nothing to him ; he wailed to have restored to 
him the hopelessly-damaged object of his affections whose 
vital sawdust strewed the nursery floor. 

There were moments when my Lord Duddingstone ap- 
proached this nadir of manhood, hours in which he recog- 
nised the insufficiency and essential trashiness of his marbles, 
his coins, and his old masters, whilst feeling (alas !) the in- 
dispensability of those eighteen lost antiques. He fidgeted, 
he fretted with almost uncontrollable impatience ; he also 
swore, for in those days gentlemen did swear. 

Take patience, my lord Viscount, bear the crushing burden 
of your calamity for one more day ; nay, for half a day ; nay, 
for an hour, — for less ! Your street bell clangs, this Wednesday 
forenoon, callers of quality are in the house. 

“My lord, Major Justin and Mr. Repton.” 

“ Major, I profess I am delighted to see ye beneath my 
roof. You have done well to call upon me, sir ; I am honoured, 
sir ; regard me as your servant, sir. Will ye be seated ? ” 

The Major bowed and bowed again, whilst Lord Dudding- 
stone, limping about the room, one foot in a pantoufle and its 
fellow in the shoe which was then known as a “ channel 
pump,’’ ran on. 

“Ye deserve well of the Company, Major — better than ye 
know, even. Our position grows stronger daily ; ’tis not 
possible now for the ministry to disavow us. There was a 
ticklish week, but your most timely arrival — and your ex- 


V 


WEDNESDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 1*1 

planations — yes, yes. The Honourable Court is under 
obligations to ye, sir. My colleagues upon the Committee of 
Foreign Relations remarked upon ye one and all ; yes, one 
and all. It shall be my pleasure, — But, heh ? What the 
deuce am I doing ? Sit, my dear sir, sit ! And your friend 
here ; I profess I had not observed his presence. My eyes 
are but little use to me on dark days, and all days at this 
season are dark days in Town. I can do nothing without 
glasses ” — he began fumbling — “ ruined ’em first with the 
small-pox at Eton, and later with small work in Italy, de- 
ciphering coins, and what not. Now, where the mischief are 
those glasses ? ” He rang a handbell passionately, and was 
answered by a servant bearing four or five pairs of glasses 
upon a velvet tray, which his lordship petulantly examined 
and wiped before bestowing in separate pockets. My lord 
would never wear spectacles, nor attach to himself in any 
manner the glasses which he used ; and in consequence, 
being the most unmethodical and impatient of men, was for 
ever mislaying them. “ Serve wine ! ” he cried after the 
man had closed the door behind him. 

“ Your friend, Major — your friend, I was saying,” he 
resumed, peering about the room through a pair of powerful 
lenses used for reading pica, and dashing them from his nose 
in disgust to replace them with a pair adapted for general use. 
“ Your friend, sir — present me, I beg — Mr. Repton, your 
servant, sir, be seated, gentlemen.” Then, observing that 
whilst the Major had taken one of the chairs indicated, his 
companion, a handsome youth of twenty, remained standing 
beside his, “Use no ceremony, young sir,” waving a small 

white hand, “ any friend of Major Justin ” The youth 

| still hesitated, the Major intervened. 

“ With your good leave, my lord, my friend here, whose 
business is with yourself, will stand until ye have heard what 
he has come to say.” 

“ Ho, some request ? — a proper consideration, and to be 
j commended in the young. Sir, ye have my leave to speak.” 

“ My lord,” began the youth with obvious tremors, “ I have 
reason to believe that these are yours.” Whilst speaking he 
advanced and placed in his host’s hands a small box such as 
gunsmiths use for pistol flints. 

“ Hey ?— what ?— mine, d’ye say ?— and how ? ” picking at 
the lid, “ Hey day ? ” The keen, short-sighted, gray eyes 
twinkled beneath twitching brows, the clean-shaven pink face 
deepened its flesh-tints, “ Mine ! undoubtedly they are 
mine. Nine, twelve, fifteen, eighteen. Yes, the full tale, 
complete again ! ” He hugged the box to his breast and 
stood back, drawing shortened breaths. “ Mine, indeed ! 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


152 

But, where ? — come, come, this beggars belief. It — it— —it 
beats bull-baiting. Ho, ho ! ” he laughed like a boy. ^ I 
am mightily beholden to ye, Mr. Rep ton ; ’tis amazing, tis 
astounding ! How, my dear sir, in Heaven’s name, came ye 
by my stolen intagli ? ” 

The youth, painfully constrained, moistened dry lips. The 
Viscount, oblivious of everything save the joys of recovered 
possession, chuckled over his toys with watering eyes. 

“ All here, every single stone, as I am a living sinner ; even 
the nereid plasma, the incomparable Isagoras, which I got 
wind of at Taranto and hunted down at Brindisi. Yes, and 
the signed Koinos that Mann came near to quarrelling with 
me over. Yes, and my Bearded Bacchos in sardonyx, in- 
scribed with the name of Pyrgoteles, my great Paestum trou- 
vaille. All here again ! Ho ! ho ! My cabinet is reinstated 
once more. I can look Walpole in the face. But, young 
man, young man, I say, where upon earth, or under it, got 
ye these ? Speak, my dear sir, speak ! Major Justin, what 
ails your friend ? ” 

The Major had risen, was moving to the side of his com- 
panion, had laid a sympathetic hand upon his shoulder, a 
fatherly hand. 

“ I will beg of you to afford us a moment’s grace, my lord. 
We have something to tell you, which Come, Repton.” 

The host, observing that his guests were standing, arose, 
still flushed and panting with excitement. He had returned 
his treasures to the box, and, holding them clasped to his 
breast between both hands, peered curiously at his visitors. 

“ My lord,” began the youth huskily, “ you lost those gems 
two months and more ago.” 

“ Lost ? ” echoed the Viscount. “ I was robbed of them, 
of these and forty-three others, forty-three antiques of less 
merit but of equal authenticity ; not one doubtful cameo, 
not a forged intaglio among them. I would scout such a trifle 
from my cabinet. Yes, sixty-one Greek gems of the best 
period, some incomparably fine, a collection unequalled in 
Europe/save that at the Vatican, of course, and — er — possibly 
the Grand Ducal cabinet at Florence. Lost ? Robbed, I 
repeat — robbed — I was, and by a scurvy fellow, a dependant, 
my chaplain, the son of a person in my service, whom I have 
educated, and befriended, and proposed to advance ; a 
monster of ingratitude, diabolical. Oh, a heart-breaking 
business ! Think what it has meant to us. I say nothing 
of the loss, the deprivation, the blank in my life — you would 
not understand — only a scholar knows. But consider the 
disappointment, the suspense, the offence given to trusted 
domestics (it has gone near to break up my household ; my 


WEDNESDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE i 53 

valet will never be the man again; my butler has fallen 
into a despondency, and drinks). Cruel ! But, ye were 
saying ? ” 

“ My lord, these and some others, possibly the whole of 
your collections — for there were over three score of them — 
fell into my hands at one time ” 

“ Ho ! — yes — yes. But, how ? ” 

“ My lord, I see that I must either begin with a confession 
or end with it. You will observe that I have declined your 
gracious permission to sit in your presence, a permission 
extended before ye knew to whom ye granted it.” 

“ Sir, Major Justin’s friendship ” 

“ Companionship, or rather patronage, my lord,” corrected 
the youth hastily, and in a low voice, with a swift glance of 
respectful gratitude at his benefactor. “It is not — there 
cannot be — friendship between such a man as Major Justin 
and myself — as yet. It is my prayer that there may be — 
at some future time. But let me get to my confession. I — I 
was a common thief.” His chin sunk upon his breast, his 
eyes closed tightly as if to shut out the scorch of an unen- 
durable shame. 

“ Good God ! ” exclaimed the Viscount. 

“ A highwayman, rather, my lord,” corrected the Major. 1 

“ Eh ? Ye don’t say so ! — that is better ; but bad, very 

bad. But what ? ” for the lad had come to a stop and 

stood with hanging head, a figure of mortification. 

“ My lord, I will tell you all — in time ; but it is hard, most 
hard. I was a gentleman — once. I heard of your loss. I — 
how shall I say ? — I surmised in whose hands those things 
would be, and where — and, so I — reclaimed them,” he con- 
cluded lamely. 

“ From the real thief ? ” asked his lordship keenly. 

“ From the original thief, my lord. I was little better. 
He robbed you. I robbed him.” 

“ Ay, ay, but intention counts — is everything, indeed. Your 
motive was noble, you proposed to yourself to restore ” 

“ Not at first ; no, my motive was unworthy. I had designs 
upon your family, upon yourself, upon your purse, my lord 
(which I need not go into, since I have laid them aside).” 

“ Highty, tighty, the deuce ye have ! I am beholden to ye, 
young man ! — And I mean it,” he added in a more cordial 
tone, still clasping the box. “ Come, this gets beyond me. 
You, yourself, as it seems to me, know but the half of your 
tale ; but I must have that half first. From whom had ye 
my gems — things of which it is impossible to suppose ye knew 
the value. Oh, ye did know it ? ” 

“ My lord, as I said, I was a gentleman once.” 


154 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


“ Where got ye your schooling ? Shrewsbury ? Oho, then 
’tis possible ye know one Baskett, a man of about your years ? ” 
The youth reddened silently. 

“ We will let that pass,” said his lordship. “ I had a reason 
— but, tell your story your own way. But, these, as ye say, 
were but a third part of your original booty (pardon the 
word). Is it permitted to ask what has become of the rest ? ” 
“ I was robbed of them in turn.” 

“ What ? — not by an Irish adventurer, by any chance ? — 
not by an extraordinary great red-haired person, calling 
himself sometimes Tighe and at others Boyle ? ” 

“ The same, my lord. I do not blame him, I waylaid the man. 
I took him, as I supposed, at a disadvantage, but he had the 
better of me, I know not how. Yes, that must be the man.” 

“ Then I am beholden to you again, young sir, for I have 
done that person an injustice (he had himself to thank for 
the ill impression he made, but that by the way). He was 
in this room no later than last Monday. He brought me the 
stones of which he deprived ye with a cock-and-bull story of 
how he came by them, one half of it false and the rest little 
to his credit. He was mixed up with my old servant Baskett ; 
my agents had been watching his movements for weeks, and 
he, as it seems, watching the News for an increase in the reward. 
I thought him a rogue in grain, yet, as now appears, he had an 
honest streak in him, and it shall be my pleasure to recognise 
his services such as they have been.” 

The little man paced the width of his carpet proudly whilst 
speaking, nodding his bewigged head with decision ; he was 
a personage who expected a good deal from the world in which 
he moved, and was prepared to repay good offices liberally. 
On the other hand, he held himself bound by his position to 
follow derelictions with pertinacious and effective displeasure. 

“And, this other, this Baskett ? (you see I have his name),” 
resumed his lordship reverting. 

“ My lord, must I refer to him ? He is a paltry fellow ; 
frankly, I think him beneath your vengeance. I could indeed 
tell ye but little more than ye know, if as much indeed ; for 
I have clean lost touch with him, and know not where he may 

be, north or south, or where ” 

“ Pass him,” cried his lordship with impatience, for, like all 
men of his rank, he was used to an implicit obedience from 
inferiors. “We have reached to this then, we have ye robbed 
by this Irishman and left for dead by the roadside. (I had all 
that from Tighe, or Boyle, and disbelieved every single word 
of it.) What next befell ye ? Who succoured ye ? What 
brought ye to a better frame ? ” 

“ My more than father, my lord, my benefactor. Major 


WEDNESDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 155 

Justin. He found me in my blood, he saw signs of life in me, 
he found shelter for me, and nursed me back to strength. 
Nor is this the half of what I owe to him. He bade me lay 
aside my evil thought of revenge ; he urged me to reform 
my life, and to set myself to make restoration of my robberies. 
\ All is due to him, my lord.” 

Whilst speaking, the youth had warmed and had forgotten 
| himself in his theme, the shame with which he had owned to 
his misdeeds had tied his tongue, but in praise of his bene- 
factor he had let himself go and had spoken hot from the heart. 

“ A handsome lad,” thought his lordship, and sighed, re- 
membering that degenerate son of his. “ A pretty fellow, 
well-mannered, well-made, and with parts. There’s blood in 
him or I’m strangely mistaken. Some gentleman’s by-blow, 
more’s the pity ; for what can one make of a bastard ? — and 
after such a misdeal ? Yet I certainly owe him a fresh 
| start. 

“ Young man,” he said aloud, “ there’s a point that puzzles 
! me yet. When ye lost the greater part of these how came ye 
to retain all the best ? What was the inducement to specially 
secrete these eighteen ? ” 

“ They are inscribed, my lord. I sorted them out for the 
pleasure I took in deciphering them ; that is all.” 

“ A scholar ; and from a grammar school ? Oho ! Will ye 
be pleased to read me that ? ” drawing from one of his many 
pockets a small bronze plaque pierced and lettered rudely. 
Rep ton received it with a bow and turned it in his hand. 
“ Latin,” said he. “ ‘ Tene me.’ Ah, it would run thus, I 
should say : ‘ Hold me fast, nor let me make off. Restore me 
to my owner Enobarbus on the estate of Quintilianus.’ What 
might this have been used for, my lord ? — a plate from a 
dog-strap ? It reems large.” 

“ An excellent guess ; ’twas a slave-badge, sir. Our ladies 
would put as much upon their black boys’ collars to-day, if 
the common people could read, or there were anywhere for 
1 the poor wretches to run to. Come, you construe your Latin 
at sight ; but what make ye of these ? ” He placed a couple 
of small stones in his guest’s hand, minutely engraved. The 
youth carried them to the nearest window. 

“ A Leda and swan, my lord, signed Mandronax, whatever 
that may signify ; and this Aphrodite Epitragia has the word 
Hermaiskos for its poesy.” He returned the gems to their 
owner with a bow : my lord took snuff with enthusiasm. 

“ Your man is a classic indeed, Major. I had these things 
from Corcyra — Corfu, I would say — but yesterday, and he 
s reads ’em off like a hornbook. Stay, I’ll put ye to one more 
‘ test, and ’tis hardly a fair one, for few of our youngsters now- 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


156 

adays could pass it ; but since ye are plainly well-grounded 
in the humanities, we’ll put ye on in the science of gentlemen. 
Discuss me this, sir.” 

“ A thumb-ring, my lord, an abbot’s, as I judge, for there 
is no mitre. Yes, he bears the arms of some foreign monastery 
impaling those of his house.” 

“ Why not English ? ” asked the virtuoso keenly. 

“ By the blazon, my lord, these hands in religion are a 
Norman charge, the name escapes me for the moment ; nor 
could it be the bearing of an English branch (there is an 
English branch, it is the Marriage coat, it has come to me) ; 
for this badge of cadency, this bordure, is either French or 
Scottish.” 

“ Excellent,” chirrupped their host, beaming upon the 
youngster with just the appreciative delight with which a 
huntsman watches a young entry make good the line across 
a sheepfold. “Major Justin, your protegS — Your pardon, 
sir ! Yes, what is it ? ” this to a servant who had entered 
silently, his manner betraying a reserved discomposure. At 
a murmured name, which was plainly not intended for the 
callers, and which did not reach them, their host stiffened. 

“ In Town ? Here ? I will not receive him. Bid him 
begone. Bid him rejoin, as from me, ye understand ? ” he 
said sternly, and, as the man retired, would have resumed the 
interrupted thread of his discourse, but again the door opened, 
and an elder man appeared with the same veiled anxety upon 
his face. Lord Duddingstone, reddening with emotion, 
dashed his glasses from his nose, set down upon the table 
the flint-box which he was in the act of reopening, and hastily 
excusing himself, preceded the servant from the room. 

Scarce had the door closed behind him when another, con- 
cealed by dummy book-backs, flew wide, and in reeled a big 
loutish youth dressed in the height of the fashion, who ex- 
claimed as he came : 

“ ‘Won’t see me, ’be hanged, for here I am, sir.” He checked 
at sight of the empty chair ; the display of wealth upon the 
table took his eye ; he chuckled tipsily. His back as he 
entered had been towards Justin and Repton, who were 
standing as they had arisen when their host left them. In 
another moment one or the other would have given some 
signal of his presence, but there simply was not time: what 
followed was done in a trice. 

“ My luck ! ” whispered the intruder, his eyes upon the 
cloth upon which my lord at his going had set down a magnifi- 
cent jewel, an Eros entrapped, cut in red and white sardonyx 
mounted in goldsmith’s work of renaissance taste. There 
was a quick, light pounce, and the cameo was gone. Justin 


WEDNESDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 157 

was so placed as to miss the significance of the movement : it 
was Repton who acted ; his left took the thief by the collar, his 
right caught the larcenous hand by its wrist and held it con- 
fined within its fob. 

“ Ug— Gug ! What the— ? Who the— ? Tr— Travis ! ” 

The name escaped the speaker’s lips just as the door reopened, 
admitting Lord Duddingstone. His lordship closed it behind 
him, set his back to it, and stood surveying the scene. 

“ Fred ! ” he exclaimed bitterly and paused, still ignorant 
of the worst. “ Heh, what ? ” he cried, advancing, for Repton, 
j aware of his coming, involuntarily relaxed his grip, whilst his 
i captive, stung to desperation, redoubled his efforts ; the 
imprisoned hand achieved freedom, but, in the act of escaping 
from the fob, dropped its booty. The pilfered cameo fell, and 
in falling rolled to the feet of its rightful owner. 

Stooping with surprising agility considering his infirmities, 
Lord Duddingstone caught it from the carpet and, arising, 
turned upon the thief a face congested with anger and exertion. 

“ Again / ” he panted. The word was as bitter as a curse. 

“ ’Twas a joke, no more. I swear, sir ! But of course you 
won’t believe me,” wailed the Honourable Frederick Scrivener, 
sobered by this inopportune climax of discovery, and bending 
• before his angry father with an abject inclination of body 
and protesting hands ; then, finding no sign of forgiveness, 
he abandoned himself to a passion of jealous fury. 

“ Damme ! say what ye choose,” he stamped. “ Do what 
ye will ! I hate you, sir ! ’Tis all your fault ! Yes, yours, 
yours ! Ye never have given me fair play, or used me as a 
a father. First ye send me up ; next ye fetch me down ; then 
ye pack me off to mess with a d — d set of dirty hawbucks, 
and now, when I ask for the favour of a word with you, ye 
deny me your presence, refuse me house-room, bar me out. 
i This house is as much mine as yours, and may be all mine 
by to-morrow ; yet ye fill it with spies ; yes, ye bring in a 
low beast, this Travis fellow, to backbite me in my absence.” 

The man had run himself out of breath. Justin’s eyes 
f widened, the Viscount peered blindly, fumbling for his glasses 
in pocket after pocket. Both turned upon Repton, who fell 
back a step. 

The Honourable Frederick saw and misinterpreted the 
>1 movement. 

“ There, look at him ! I knew it ! I heard that he was in 
the house and forced myself into your presence, sir, to out- 
face him. Ye don’t know him, sir ; ye don’t indeed ! ” 

“ And that I take to be your first true word,” interposed 
the Viscount dryly. “ And now, sir,” turning to Repton, 
it who may you be ? Travis , he has called you,” 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


158 

“ Travis is my name, my lord, Draycott Sigismund Travis; 
yes, late a servitor of Christ Church.” 

Justin’s face flamed, unobserved by the others, who were too 
absorbed in their own concerns to notice the silent little man 
in his corner, whose heart was beating joyously within him. 

“ Mr. Travis of Christ Church, Oxford ! ” cried Lord Dudding- 
stone incredulously, the form of his countenance changing. 
“ Is’t possible ? — but ’tis amazing ! The missing piece of 
the puzzle, the key to the cipher, begad ! Sir, allow me to 
tender you my sincere commiseration. I know your story, 
the unmerited humiliations brought upon you by this ill- 
conditioned whelp here. Yes, by you, sir ! ” with a scathing 
side-glance at the Honourable Frederick, who stood shifting 
himself from one foot to its fellow, picking at the lace upon his 
cuff. “ But, apologies are poor stuff if they stand alone ; 
I purposed reinstatement when I first heard of that Oxford 
business, and did what I could to get the dons to reconsider 
your case. ’Twas your going down so precipitately which 
baulked me. And now I fear that door is closed.” He stopped, 
finding himself upon the edge of revelations which were not 
for the ear of his son. “ After all, honour comes first. Ye sent 
your cartel once to this poltroon of mine ; he got his tutor 
to take it up, eh ? And now, after what has passed but a 
minute since ye judge him unworthy of your sword, eh ? 
But sit ye down here and write your challenge again, and ye 
shall see him eat it.” 

Oh, sir, for pity’s sake,” whined the Honourable Frederick, 
bursting into tears. 

“ Sir ! — my lord ! ” stammered Travis, “ I am in your 
hands and Major Justin’s, but, of my own motion, I’d not 
pursue my quarrel farther.” 

“ Naturally ye would refuse to fight a thief ! ” 

“ We are all sinners, my lord,” said the youth, with a meaning 
look and in a shaken voice, the colour mounting to his brow, 
but meeting his host’s eye steadily. Both men stopped speak- 
ing. Travis resumed : 

“ I have vowed my life to my king, my lord.” 

“ You are right,” interrupted the Viscount impetuously. 
“ Command my influence, young sir; you, at least, will do me 
credit. Whilst as for you — ” he wheeled upon the unworthy 
inheritor of his name, who, divining that the wrath that boded 
ill for his personal comfort was past, had recovered his jaunty 
carriage and was surprised in the act of taking snuff. 

As for me, sir ? I beg ye will not concern yourself : ye 
cannot set aside the entail.” 

“ But I can and will cut ye out of the personalty. . . . 
Begone l ” 




WEDNESDAY AT DUDDINGSTONE HOUSE 159 

“ And I can and will give post-obits,” riposted the scape- 
grace, snapping-to the lid of his snuff-box and retreating with 
undignified haste. 

His father kicked-to the door behind him, and after a 
momentary struggle for self-mastery rang for wine. 

During this painful personal interlude neither Lord Dudding- 
stone nor the young fellow, who, having entered the house 
as Repton, had since confessed to another name, had given a 
thought to Justin. The Major, never careful to hold the centre 
of the stage, had kept in the background. His prottge now 
turned at the gentle pressure of a hand upon his arm and 
found himself confronted by an illumined countenance; little 
kindly ellipses framed the angles of an astonished mouth; 
twitching crowsfeet puckered the corners of incredulous eyes, 
eyes that shone and sparkled for all the intensity of their 
scrutiny. 

“ My lord, pardon me, I beg ! ” cried the Major, low and 
with a sort of breathless haste in his tone, turning to his host, 
but still retaining his hold, as though he feared that his newly 
found ward might elude him. “ Repton ? ” — he swung round 
again and faced his man — “ What does this mean ? — Did I 
catch ? — Did I hear ? — Travis ye call yourself — and the 
Christian names Draycott and Sigismund ? Then it must be ! 
A coincidence is impossible, ’tis millions to one. Who was 
your father. Rep — Travis, I mean ? — Yes, yes ! And your 
mother ? Then it is — you are the hoy ! ” 

The youth, having replied to his friend’s questions, stood 
in silent embarrassment, awaiting he knew not what of news 
from a father of whom he had never heard good nor bad, but 
whose character, by reason of this unnatural reticence, he 
suspected had been flawed. 

His lordship, perceiving that for the moment his presence 
was forgotten, and his cabinet the scene of a crescendo move- 
ment of recognitions and eclair cissements, behaved as a gentle- 
man should. Intercepting the entrance of the servant, he 
served the Major with wine with his own hands, and, turning 
a discreet back, examined one of his newly recovered intagli 
with a watchmaker’s eye-piece whilst his guests rearranged 
their mutual relationships. 

“ But I have sought ye half over England, my boy. Did 
ye never see my notices and rewards in the News ? Did no 
one ever tell ye ? My lord, this young gentleman turns out 
to be the son of one of my oldest friends. His mother, of 
whom I can scarce trust myself to speak, I knew before her 
marriage. His father and I served in the old Thirty-ninth 
for a score of years. Both are dead, Colonel Travis upon 
the day on which I sailed, seven months since, and after 


i6o 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


charging me to assist his children. Your sister, Travis ? 
Ye have a sister, my lad, Baby Sue. I remember her well. 
Where is she ? At Chester with your aunt ? To think of 
it ! And but t’other day we were within a few miles of 
her. . . . And neither of us understood. Well, well ! We 
must ride north again. She knows nothing of — this ? 
Naturally ; but ye can look her in the face now. But in the 
meantime,” turning to Lord Duddingstone, who was finding 
the pursuit of archaeology difficult under the circumstances, 
and was growingly interested in his guests, “ My lord, I 
should explain ” 

“ As ye will, Major; but first let me fill your glass. Help 
yourself, Mr. Travis. I am still somewhat in the dark, but 
none the less delighted. It looks as though we had both been 
hunting our young friend here upon different lines, and had 
run into him simultaneously. Ye may think yourself lucky, 
youngster, for this gentleman and myself — (Between you and 
me, Major, ’twill go hard but we make a man of him yet. 
My interest, of course, I place, but I have already said that.) 
Is there — er — much that needs setting — er — right ? If — er — 
(pardon the suggestion) means are needed, ye have only ” 

“ My lord, I thank ye — he thanks ye ; but Mr. Travis is 
amply ” 

“ ’Tis unknown to me, then,” gasped the poor lad blankly, 
feeling his head begin to turn. 

“As a loan between gentlemen,” urged his lordship, un- 
willing to be baulked. The youth dropped upon his knee, 
caught his host’s hand and, having carried it to his lips, sought 
the darkest corner of the room in which to master his emotions, 

“ La, la,” muttered his lordship, extending his box to 
Justin, He will do, this one. Ill-usage would have made 
a devil of him, but you and I, Major, you and I, eh ? ” 


CHAPTER VI 


FRIDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE. BOYLE GETS HIS CHANCE 

THE'Irishman lay late after his Wednesday night’s bout, but 
by Thursday noon had his head in a tub and was calling for 
small beer and steak. Sue glanced fearfully at her master’s 
congested, determined face, and trembled ; some new impulse 
was moving him in which she had no part. For the first time 
since she had known him he was slovenly in his dress ; un- 
shorn, unpowdered, loose at the wrists and throat ; he sate at 
his food, forcing it down, with no word for her ; then, bidding 
her be off with the tray, he fell to taking stock of their posses- 
sions. 

Hers were touched and tossed aside as inadequate ; there 
\ was no money in the little hoard of childish presents. Her 
christening mug and a silver spoon, both of Eastern make, he 
weighed in his hand and gloomed upon — ’twas too pitiful a 
spoil ; he put them back for second, and possibly worse 
thoughts. 

To his own belongings. A French repeater with fob-riband 
and heavy seal was roughly appraised and repouched : he 
could not part with it, ’twas a part of himself. A case, which 
Sue saw opened for the first time, contained his service sword, 
a bright, notched blade, upon which she looked with a tightened 
throat. Her husband frowned upon it : it should be the last 
thing to go. 

His pistols, then, a pair of wonderful weapons of an ex- 
quisite workmanship and finish ; again no ; he could not part 
with them. Shutting an eye, he toised a chimney-pot through 
the grimy pane ; dandled the darlings, wiping imaginary 
t specks of dust from the satin sheen of blue barrels, and, mutter- 
ing, returned them to their box. 

His books came next under review : no extensive library, as 
you may guess, but enough to have opened Sue’s eyes : was 
not his real name upon their flyleaves ? There was The 
Compleat Gamester, printed for J. Hodges of London, being 
the Gentleman's Guide to the Play of Whist , Ombre, and Quadrille. 

161 ii 


■ 


162 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


Next came a 1772 Hoyle, the Dublin edition ; and the Edin- 
burgh issue of Sir W. Hope’s Vindication of the True Art of 
Self-Defence with his Proposals to the Hon'ble Members of 
Parliament for erecting a Court of Honour in Great Britain, 
a really fine work with plates, and in fair condition, although I 
fifty years old. The three volumes, and a song-book, which ! 
he hastily closed, would bring but a few shillings ; these too, j 
each and all, were essentials : he would not know himself ! 
without a few such-like trifles. Yes, money he must have. 
Back went his thoughts to his pistols, his most valuable pos- j 
sessions. These might fetch a good round sum if suitably j 
placed upon the market ; but time was needed, nor did he | 
know his London ; and finally, where should he replace them 
when his luck should turn ? Something must go. The words 
recurred with the steady throbbing of an aching head. He 
sate very still with empty hands for a matter of five minutes, 
watched in silence by his patient bride, unconscious of fault, 
but hungering for reconciliation. He did not turn his eyes to 
her once ; he had not kissed her since his waking. At the 
beginning of his brown-study, he loved her and hated himself, 
at its end he loved himself and half hated her. He had given 
place to the devil. Sue should go. 

The man was at one of the many crises of a feverish life. 
He saw that his ace was trumped. No further hope of help 
from Lord Duddingstone remained to him : nor, if his lord- 
ship should choose to exert his influence, was employment to 
be hoped for at either the War Office or the India House. 

“ If he speaks he blocks me. I’ll speak fir’rst,” he said, 
breaking a silence which had lasted an hour, and set himself 
to make an elaborate toilet. The money was gone, but his 1 
clothes were still presentable. He would play his appearance, 
his undeniable service record, and his matchless effrontery for 
all they might be worth to His Majesty’s Secretary of State at 
War ; yes, and would play them next day, forestalling a pos- 
sible embargo by his enemy. Sue had failed him, he would try 
a last throw with his own hand. So Thursday passed in 
preparations. 


The doors of the inner office opened at last. The latest 
left of the waiters for interviews arose and uncovered, moisten- 
ing dry lips and smiling wistfully with some faint hope of 
catching, if they might, the eye of the minister ere he left for 
the day. 

Mr. Jenkinson, who had succeeded Lord Barrington a month 
before, looked neither to right nor left as he sauntered forth, < 
hat on head and cane beneath his arm, attending to the set of 


FRIDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE 


163 

his ruffles ; the privileged caller, who had wasted his after- 
noon and disappointed the hopes of twenty worthier men, 
strolled beside him, chatting glibly of far-distant horrors, as 
stay-at-home warriors are accustomed to do in war-time. 

“ Better news these, from Clinton, eh ? ’Tis the Susque- 
hannah coup over again. Our Loyalists and their savages 
know their business, eh ? ” 

s ‘ What, the Cherry Valley burnings ? I swear I am mortally 
sick of the thing. A cruel piece of — what ? - Only carrying 

out the Declaration ? ’ Suffolk is a fool and Johnstone some- 
thing worse (if there be anything worse than a fool, which 
I doubt). His tampering with their man Reed has done the 
King’s affairs all the harm in the world. I profess I am not 
squeamish, but these * extremes of war ’ — pah ! See what a 
handle they have given to Coke and Rockingham — Burke too.” 

The careless, high-pitched voices flattened as the men 
descended the wide stair. Boyle understood nothing : he 
was not attending ; he stood biting his lip in chagrin at another 
day wasted. Not the Poets’ Poet himself was more keenly 
sensible of What hell it is in suing long to bide. “ Twinty 
years have I sur’rved the Black Cockade — more shame to me 
father’s son ! — and at the last to foind mesilf tipped over 
the tail of the yoke and left on the road ! An’ mesilf a full 
major, with me campeens and hurts to show for ut ! Faith, 
’tis not so aisy for a poor man to be crossing the Channel in 
war-time, or, for all they tell us of his uncle’s treatment of 
poor Lally, I’d be thrying if King Louis were not the better 
paymaster.” 

After the interval demanded by etiquette, he descended 
with the rest. A sentry blocked the portal, Mr. Secretary still 
loitered, the chairs of himself and his friends stopped the way. 
While demigods exchange parting pinches, the commonalty 
keeps its distance. Boyle, fretting inwardly, his stomach 
calling for food, must halt, hat in hand, until the way should 
be clear. 

The minister and his friend, now joined by a third grandee, 
gesticulated spaciously at their ease without thought for the 
inconvenience of lesser mortals. ’Twas hounds now, a match 
to be run from the Rubbing-House in Newmarket town to 
the starting-post of the Beacon Course, between a couple of 
Mr. Meynell’s pack and a couple of Mr. Barry’s, for five 
hundred pounds. 

“ Meynell is training upon legs of mutton, I hear,” said the 
minister, breaking the seal of a letter placed in his hands a 
moment before by a messenger who was still in view crossing 
the courtyard. Boyle idly watched the man’s back and 
thought he had seen his liveries somewhere lately. 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


164 

“ That is Old Dud’s man for a guinea,” wagered a demigod, 
dropping glass from eye and swinging his cane by its tassel. 

“ Two to five I name the business,” said the third. 

“ Pooh, ye saw us bidding,” laughed the minister, running ; 
an eye over the letter. “ But ye’d have lost, for ’tis nothing ; 
to do with the Dutch enamels. This old hunks solicits my 
good offices for a client of his : one Boyle. Now, where have 
I seen the name ? On some minute of Barrington’s was it ? 
Or wasn’t it, March ? Who is this Boyle ? An Irishman 
if I read this aright (he writes ill enough in all conscience), 
an army man who has suffered a set-back. Now, where on l 
earth ? ” The speaker held a pinch between finger and thumb 
in suspense, whilst glancing to left and right for a suggestion in 
aid of memory. His back was toward the hungry group in 
the porch. 

“I am here, sir — your pardon; but I thought I heard ye 
call me. Boyle, late of the Forty-first.” The Major passed 
the sentry, advanced a couple of steps, and halted saluting. 

It is possible to be too opportune. The man’s precipitancy 
came near to crossing his business. The minister, unused to 
self-introductions conducted with such absence of formality, 
stiffened frigidly, quizzing his man in an unpromising silence : 
even when the glass was lowered, the poise of the head, no 
less than the curves of brow and lip, denoted a certain repug- 
nance, curbed by something, possibly recollections of the 
writer of the letter still held between his fingers. 

“ In-deed ? And are you the Mr. Boyle of whom my 

friend ? By the by, are ye personally acquainted with 

Lord Duddingstone ? ” 

Boyle claimed the acquaintance with frank heartiness. “ I 
was at Duddingstone House within the week, sir ; beyond 
a touch of the gout, his lordship was in his usual health.” 1 

“ ’Tis the excuse he makes for his penmanship,” laughed 
the minister, half disarmed by this clever parry. He and 
Duddingstone were rival collectors. The ownership of a 
pair of cloisonne vases, which had reached London from 
Tokyo by way of Amsterdam, was in dispute between them : , 
Jenkinson still hoped to be obliged. He turned to his waiting 
friends, “ An affair of a couple of minutes ; wait, if you 
will ; or expect me later at Arthur’s,” then, turning to Boyle, 

“ Will you be pleased to follow me?” he reascended the 
stair. 

The interview was of the shortest. “ Have ye any papers ? 

— so,” running over Boyle’s commission. “ Sir, if I recall the 
circumstance, it has been touch-and-go with you. But your 
patron thinks well of ye. You served in the Virginias ? ” 

“And at New York, sir; I was woundud at the affair of 


FRIDAY AT THE WAR OFFICE 165 

Long Island, and again at Haarlem Heights, and a thir’rd 

time at the taking of Fort Washington, and ” 

Yes, yes ; but it was not wounds which brought ye home, 

I sir, as I lead this ” tapping a paper laid before him by a 

secretary. The minister recognised the gravity of the record, 
his visage darkened. The clerk turned the page. 

“ What, more ? ” he read on and sate in stillness for a few 
moments, realising the unfitness of this postulant for service. 

“ Sir, I did wrong to bid ye to this room. As for my 
Lord Duddingstone, I must suppose that he knows ye but 

( slightly. I fear there is nothing ” He stripped the 

feather from a quill. Boyle, but now buoyant upon a rising 
billow of hope, sickened in the descent. 

The minister drew his feet beneath him and cleared his 

I throat to give dismissal, but the clerk submitted yet another 
paper. 

“ Still more ? Ah ! How came this ? — and when ? An 
hour or so since ? And why was it kept from me ? ” 

The clerk murmured excuses. Boyle, with amazement, 
recognised his own memorial, the copy lost by Sue. 

The minister did not so much as glance at it, reserving a 
hesitant displeasure for a scrawled endorsement which he 
seemed at once to resent and bow to. The quill fared badly 
at his hands ; then, with a clearing brow and a hard smile : 

“ Sir, my lord duke is pleased to interest himself in you. I 
can only say ye are happy in your friends ” (a touch of malice 
here). He seemed to relent, but hesitated still, watched 
mutely by Boyle, who was now blessing Sue in his heart. 

' “ It would appear that ye are a person with a genius for 

locking the door by which ye wish to enter. America is 
closed to ye. But it is just upon the cards that I have a 

billet ” he turned to the clerk. “ When do they say St. 

John can travel ? ” 

“ Sir, he died in St. Thomas’s Hospital this afternoon,” 
replied the man. The minister, without remarking upon the 
news, turned to Boyle. 

“ Could ye start to-morrow ? Are ye without encum- 
brance ? ” 

“ I am, my lor’rd ! and at your honour’s commands this 
minute ! ” cried Boyle the prompt, the spirit of the gamester 
with a winning hand shining in his hazel eyes. (“By God, 
I am a made man, this day ! ” he was saying to himself, and 
knew not that sentence had gone forth against him for that 
moment’s perfidy, nor heard the departing wings of his good 
angel.) 

“ Ha, ye can ? Then we will gazette ye to the vacant 
majority in His Majesty’s 10th Hanoverians — Hardenberg’s, 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


1 66 

I believe the fellows prefer to call themselves — a singularly 
troublesome corps in my judgement, but that is by the way, 
and your own unfortunate experiences will aid ye in keeping 
them in order. They are quartered at Gibraltar. Ye may 
thank a hackney coachman for this chance. Your pre- 
decessor-designate was knocked down on London Bridge no 
later than yesterday, and I am but just apprised of his death. 
His predecessor fell in a duel, sir.” The speaker’s eye was 
severe ; Boyle, who had fancied him a fribble, saw his mistake. 
Jenkinson was a shrewd, painstaking man of business, whose 
foible it was to pass as a person of pleasure ; he would be 
Lord Hawkesbuiy eight years later, and die Lord Liverpool, 
full of years and honours, the latter more honestly earned 
than were most of the titles and pensions enjoyed by the 
servants of King George the Deplorable. 

“ Yes, sir,” continued the minister, after a scrutinising 
pause, “ here is your last chance. The exigencies of His 
Majesty’s service, the malice of these colonials, a poke with 
a small-sword, and the ill-driving of a drunken jarvey have 
set ye upon your feet again. Here ” — he scrawled his name 
with a spluttering quill, the clerk shook sand upon the blots — 
“ here is your commission duly endorsed. Major St. John’s 
cabin — yours now — is taken upon the transport, Mary of 
S omething- or -other , lying somewhere in the pool, under 
orders to take to-morrow’s tide. Ye will find details on 
board from the Tower and Knightsbridge, which ye will 
hand over to the Commandant of Pendennis Castle, placing 
your services at his disposal in getting what polish ye can 
upon the drafts for the Rock garrison. A convoy for the 
Mediterranean will rendezvous at Falmouth sooner or later 
(my colleague of the navy will see to that), and ye will take 
your passage out then. Commend me to the Duke and to 
Lord Duddingstone, sir ; and I have the honour to wish ye a 
good-day.” 


CHAPTER VII 


SATURDAY IN THE PARK ; SUE’S ANGEL INTERVENES 

# 

The girl sate dejectedly upon the seat, the same which she 
had shared with her husband on the previous Tuesday. Here 
she had sate by his side for the last time, here for the last time 
he had shown her some small kindness. It had been a mild 
winter’s sunset then — there was rime upon the grass to-day, 
the first of the eighty-four days’ frost which ushered in that 
disastrous year. Her shoes were worn and thin, she had 
eaten nothing since her breakfast, she was lonely, low- 
spirited, hungry, and cold ; weary, too, for she had tramped 
the streets since her landlady had shewn her to the door. 

Con was missing. She had awakened in the dark of a 
winter’s morning to find his side of the bed empty and cold. 
He had not returned to breakfast. Her anxieties had grown 
as the forenoon had worn on ; still she had not suspected the 
worst until her landlady, after an unauthorised examination 
of her lodger’s belongings, had descended upon her with per- 
emptory demands for a settlement of her bill. Sue had from 
the first surrendered to her husband the custody of the 
common purse. He was not to be found, and had taken 
with him, as her creditor had already assured herself, every 
article of value which he possessed. 

“ I’d hegspected as much,” averred the woman, “ but ’e 
’ave done me brown. Fobbed me off with fine words for 
three weeks, but never showed me the colour of his money. 
There’s a cord lyink in the area what ’e let ’is stuff out o’ 
winder by. I seen ’im leave early, and looked the man over 
careful-like. Never crost me mind to look outside round 
the corner in John Street. Yes, ’e’s bunged the lydy on me 
like a dud shillin’. That’s the sort 'e is. So, hout ye gits, 
madam ! ” 

Sue had gone forth almost as she stood, the woman, with 
an afterthought of pity, allowing her her cloak. 

Some vague hope of finding her husband in the neighbour- 

167 


1 68 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


hood of the War Office had drawn her feet westward. It 
seemed possible to her that he had received some call to 
service necessitating an abrupt departure ; he had thrown 




message or note to herself had miscarried. 

Disappointed love demands its working hypothesis, and 


will construct and cling to the incredible, so there be hope 
and comfort therein. 

She sate and waited, there was no object in walking further, 
nor was she capable of much more exertion. At intervals she 
yawned and strong shudders shook her light form. She 
mechanically watched the passers-by. 

There were fewer to take the air to-day. A lady passed, a 
lady of the petit maitre gender, some sixty-six inches in 
height, of which four must be credited to a wondrous erection 
of false hair, and another to the scarlet heels of the buckled 
shoes upon which she tottered, steadying herself with a 
ribanded crook en bergtre, as tall as her little self. The lady 
was of any age which you might choose to suppose ; there was 
powder upon her hair and rouge upon her cheeks ; patches 
called attention to wrinkles which she fondly hoped would 
pass for dimples. Her eyes, from the habit of thirty years, 
roved right and left in search of admirers, as she rustled past, 
slowly swinging her hoop and conversing in a high-pitched, 
creaking voice with a tall, angular young officer of one of the 
Highland regiments. The young gentleman carried the lady’s 
hooded cloak, and kept as near to her elbow as the extravagant 
radius of her farthingale permitted. A fat poodle panted 
at her heels. 

A black servant dawdled behind, a big, ugly, over-fed, 
lark-heeled West African, his blubber lips ever upon the move, 
his eyes rolling loosely in his head. They rolled upon Sue 
where she sat, and overlooked her with a slave’s scorn of a 
mean white ; they returned to her with interest. The fellow 
stopped, was staring, posing, straddling before her, scratching 
his woolly poll. 

“ Huh ! I seen ye befo’, missie, ho ! ho ! ” he remarked, 
and slouching after his mistress called her attention to the 
gray-cloaked figure. The lady paused, questioned her man 
incredulously, whilst using a long-handled eye-glass. A 
distant inspection proving unsatisfactory, the party turned 
and strolled slowly in the direction of the seat. Sue found 
herself the subject of an exacting scrutiny, the strange lady 
looking her up and down, correcting the possible error of one 
point of view by another, discussing possibilities. 

“ Ye are sure, Scipio ? Sure ? Mind ! I never pardon 
mistakes.” 



SATURDAY IN THE PARK 


169 

“ Ho, qui’ shoh ! ma’am — dis am missy wot come by stage. 
Qui’ shoh.” 

“ Ahem. I don’t trust ye. I don’t know what to do. 

'Tis a risk to speak to these persons. Ye never know what 

Young woman, I say ! ” 

Sue, who had kept her eyes upon the ground, ignoring what 
she was powerless to prevent, and too weary to rise and leave, 
now raised them. 

“ La ! ’tis Agatha’s very self ! ” cried the lady, low and 
breathlessly, but with no pleasure in her voice. “ Who are 
ye, miss ? and how came ye here ? And what d’ye mean by 
playing hide-and-seek with me for three weeks, eh ? Answer 
me, I say ! Why don’t ye speak ? Ye are Susan Travis, 
plain enow.” 

“ My name is Susan, madam, Susan Tighe. But what am 
I to you, may I ask ? I think I never met ye before.” 
Susan’s beautiful, sad face was flushed for a moment. She 
had half arisen when she found herself addressed, and now 
reseated herself faintly, for the face, peering into her own, 
troubled her. The voice had notes in it which were teasingly 
familiar, and although the rouged cheeks and false hair 
disguised resemblances, the eyes and the eyebrows were 
the eyes and the brows of the aunt whom she had buried at 
Chester. 

The two women, the painted old maid of fifty, and the 
fasting, exhausted girl of eighteen, studied one another’s 
faces for some moments, each finding the features of the dead 
in the face of the living. The elder woman spoke first. 

“ I ? I am your aunt Camilla. Who else ? What ? 

“ But, ye were dead. They told me so at your house. The 
funeral was over. The place was sold and shut up. I could 
not get in. At least they told me ” — for the other was very 
obviously and haughtily alive — “ Oh, why did they say so ? 
Oh, what have I done ? ” 

“ That,” remarked Miss Camilla Draycott severely, “ is 
what I intend to know. Dead ? absurd ! Your soldier friend 
beat my boy, Scipio, here, whom I sent to meet ye at the 
coach-office, and carried ye off, nolus bolus, I suppose ye will 
say, to a haunt of his own. Oh, don’t deny it ! We traced 
ye so far — an honest fellow of a hackney coachman. The 
woman of the house, too, though no better than she should 
be, in my opinion, a creature with a hair-pin in her mouth, 
admitted as much. Ye declined her offer of shelter, miss, 
ye know ye did : and despite her warnings as to how it would 
turn out, drove away in a chaise with your beau. Where is 
he now ? Don’t lie to me, miss ! He has deserted ye, of 
course : any one can see that. Naturally : I thought as much. 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


170 

And ye will be expecting me to take ye in, a damaged article ; 
but no thank ye ! ” 

“ Madam ! Aunt Camilla, if ye are Aunt Camilla, ye don’t 
understand. What could I do ? The black was in drink. 

I recollect him now, and got fighting ” Scipio bawled 

repudiation until silenced by his mistress. Sue continued : 
“ The coachman said he came from you ; I gave him your 
address ” 

“ But allowed him to take ye to another house, in Camomile 
Street, out east.” 

“ Surely no; I think not. Yet it might have been — must 
have been, if ye say so ; but how was I to know ? He said — 
the woman next door said — oh, I can’t explain ! ” 

“ Possibly not, miss.” 

“ Indeed, ye are hard upon me. Aunt. I was never in 
London before, and all the houses are so alike, and after 
dark, too. They assured me ye were dead, and that wicked 
woman would not take me in ; ’tis false what she told ye : 
she has deceived us both. But why ? She said she saw ye 
die, she told me your last words ; she spoke of the bailiffs 
and the auction and all. Could there have been another 
Miss Draycott ? What was I to do ? She urged me ; he 
pressed me ; even the sailor thought I had better ” 

“ A sailor in it ? Lord save us ! ” 

“ and we — I was married.” 

“ Mar — vied ? ” echoed the elder lady, curtseying ironically 
before executing a tiny half pirouette to enable her to appeal 
effectively to a scandalised universe. “ Married ? Who by ? 
Where ? When ? Legally — at that time of night. Im- 
possible ! ” 

She mutely drew her glove and showed her ring. 

“ Pooh ! Any slut can buy a ring. Where are your lines ? ” 

Sue’s face of blank bewilderment was no protection from 
the acrid scorn of her outraged relative. 

“ So, madam, that is your tale. Ye have made a runaway 
match with a town bully ; jumped the broomstick without 
witnesses, in a house which ye know not the name of (but I 
do), without clergy, bans, licence, or lines, and are now upon 
the street. Is it not so ? Answer me : are ye not upon the 
street ? ” 

“Yes, I suppose I have been, since my breakfast,” assented 
Sue, wholly unaware of the construction the words bore. 
Her beautiful sad eyes filled and ran over, her mouth quivered ; 
but the woman who had defrauded her sisters of their in- 
heritance years before, and hated them ever since, had no 
pity. 

“ On the street ! Oh ! ‘ She uttered a little affected shriek. 


SATURDAY IN THE PARK 


171 

“ La, I said so — she admits it. What think ye of that, Mr. 
Chisholm, for a piece of impudence ? ” 

The youth, who at the beginning of this scene had turned 
his back, but had since been gradually drawn to side-glances 
by the golden cadences of Sue’s marvellous voice, that pleading, 
protesting voice, now swung round, and came into the con- 
versation bluntly enough, and at his first word Sue was sure 
that she had met him somewhere before. 

“ I dinna think the young leddy jalouses what ye’re meanin’, 
ma’am ; I think ” 

“ Highty, tighty ! Ye think, my boy, do ye ? ’Tis the 
last fault I’d have charged ye with. Yes, yes, a pretty face 
and a sad tale have turned your head in a little. I had better 
protect ye, sir, for these creatures are marvellous clever.” 
Then turning to her niece, “ Madam (I can no longer call ye 
miss), I wish you a happy issue to your adventure, and a 
good-day ! ” She bobbed a second insolent curtsey, and 
minced off, laughing shrilly; the panting lapdog followed, 
the black bringing up the rear. 

Sue, plunged in still deeper wells of misery than before 
her coming and these revelations, sate mute and utterly 
miserable. Her lines ? Why had she not thought of this 
at the time, or since ? Why had not Con ? There should 
have been something in writing, no doubt. The girl had 
never been present at a wedding, having lived since her child- 
hood with an invalid and a pair of old maids, and knew as 
little law as a maiden of eighteen commonly knows, which 
is just none at all. Yet, in the back of her mind lay some 
dim, confused ideas of the uses of a church register. Lines ? 
Old Millie had once made use of the term in converse with 
a neighbour. 

This was a blow. The day, cold before, grew bitter, and 
the gray park, the city she had left, its crowds and sounds, 
inhuman. The despair of the young is very terrible : they 
have no resources, no experience. For one wretched minute 
Sue was within the grip of the giant, then, rallying her valiancy, 
she arose against him : she would cling to her belief in her hus- 
band against the world, against appearances, against his own 
act. His wife she was, her husband was he — nothing should 
separate them, neither the barbarity of his service regula- 
tions, nor distance, not the bitter words of others, nor her 
own weakness. She would, if need were, beg her bread 
across sea and land until she found him. Her heart grew 
warm again within her as she thus resolved. If things were 
impossibly black around her, there was the better reason for 
moving on ; they could not be worse elsewhere, and might 
be better. She arose, and, holding by the back of the seat, 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


172 

stood considering her next direction, tottering a little, for 
her limbs were stiff. Swift masculine steps were approaching. 
The tall young Scots officer stood before her. “ Mistress 
Tra-viss, I thenk ” 

“ I am Mrs. Tighe, sir,” corrected Sue with dignity. 

“ A thoosand pairdons, ma’am ; ’twass an inadvairtency.” 
He blushed furiously. Sue drew her cloak around her and 
turned, she desired no conversation with strange men. 

“ Ye are left, as I fear, ma’am, in a sair quandary, withoot 
siller. Is not that sae ? ” 

Sue’s proud lips were sealed, her chin raised, her eyes fixed 
upon the blurred black trees beyond this intrusive boy. But 
he held his ground, though obviously a prey to shyness. 

“ Ma’am, this maunna be. A leddy, a young leddy, canna 
fend for hersel’ wantin’ bawbees, and in sic weather ; I am 
certain sure ye hae bin tellin’ true. I find it, here ” — he 
touched his breast. “ I wuss to God I had a roof of my ain. 
'Pon my sawl, I do ! Or kent ane honest wumman in all 
Lunnon Toun. I am by wi’ her, there” — he indicated, with 
a gesture of restrained disgust, Miss Camilla at the end of the 
walk, awaiting his return to her side. “ Ma’am, ye maunna 
gang wantin' bread. . . . Cot bless ye, Mrs. Tighe ! ” He 
bowed awkwardly, a quaint blend of the military and civil 
salutes, had Sue known it, for the boy was new to his facings. 

Sue heard his retreating steps : she had not looked at 
him. She did not look after him, but — never fear — his 
rugged, pock-marked face of homely pity would dwell in her 
memory while life lasted. She must reseat herself, must 
shut her eyes tightly to keep back the rising tears. When she 
reopened them and made ready to rise and go, she started, 
for there upon the seat beside her lay a broad, bright, golden 
guinea ! Then the tears came irresistibly, no winking them 
back ; she bent over the bright little thing, which meant so 
much to her, weeping passionately and feeling her heart- 
strings relax and her whole nature soften. Then, say a 
minute or so later, pride pricked her to her feet. “ Oh, I 
cannot take it. ’Twould not be right. Con will be so angry.” 
She essayed to arise and follow — but whither ? The young 
Scot had left in the opposite direction to that taken by her 
aunt. Both were out of sight. The Park seemed empty. 
Plainly she must take the coin or leave it where it lay. She 
ended by accepting it as the bounty of God Himself. 

Of her benefactor she remembered little, but sufficient ; 
his gaunt height and squareness, lissome youth, battered, dis- 
figured cheekbones and eminent hawk nose, red-bridged from 
much facing of rough weather, as one judged ; these, the im- 
pressions of one half-glance, came back to her later. She had 


SATURDAY IN THE PARK 


173 

been wishing the big, strange, intrusive boy away whilst he 
stood before her. Now that he was gone past recall, she 
wished him back again to thank him and ask his name, sure 
there could be no impropriety in that ! 

The West End had failed her — she drifted aimlessly east- 
ward and hung about the only thoroughfares she knew — 
Crutched Friars, Seething Lane and Great and Little Tower 
Streets. Dusk found her famishing outside a cook-shop in 
the Minories, lacking courage to enter, to ask for supper and 
shelter for the night, dreading rebuff, dreading bad company, 
her nerve shaken by the day’s calamities. 

Nature grew clamorous ; food she must have. She faltered 
in, sank into a seat near the door ; the woman eyed her curi- 
ously, but asked no questions, and brought tea and toast — 
her modest demand. How famished she found herself when 
food was at last within her reach ; how ravenously she ate, 
how rich, how exquisitely the hot bread smelt ; what savours, 
what spicery were in the dry, black corner crust ! Her head 
ceased aching, she felt better after her first mouthful and 
saw more clearly. The dark little shop was filling, her stall 
and table, laid for two, was the last unfilled. A burly sailor- 
man lurched slowly in, looked her over squarely, and seated 
himself opposite to her. She glanced up from her plate, 
their eyes met, and met again, the waitress drummed the 
board with an impatient knuckle, expectant of an order. 
“ Brenchcheese an’ a dish o’ tay, please, ma’am,” said the 
newcomer in a drawling nasal singsong, the last word running 
up into an almost ludicrous whine, the accent of the sea- 
board between Boston deeps and the Nore. Sue caught her 
breath ; the sailorman’s frosted cheek puckered, a pair of 
tufted brows arose until they disturbed the set of an ill- 
fitting wig, his kindly, wrinkle-embedded eyes peered out 
upon her sparkling from their darkened hollows ; he leant 
forward frankly. “ Gorramussy, but, yew’ll be the dadical 
gal as I sorter went an’ giv’ away ? There ! If I dint think 
so ! Aye ! heow H’yew fare tew find yewrself, ma’am ? ” 

It was the mariner of her wedding night, and Sue’s face, 
transparently truthful as ever, admitted the recognition. 

His tea being served, was poured into his saucer to cool, 
and he, blowing softly upon it, kept his far-seeing, kindly eye 
upon the girl, whose woeful story his experience pieced together 
from her admissions, conscious and inadvertent, checked by 
some private knowledge of his own, as to which he was silent. 

“ Missus, I did wrong by thee. I sorter kinder leaned to 
my own understandin’, whereas I should ha’ trusted in the 
Lord. Sims I dint, and here ye be. Yew — thee, I mean — 
arsted for to come along o’ me, an’ I put ye off.” (The 


THE CHANCES OF TOWN 


174 

mariner had a knack of employing the plain language of the 
Quakers at the beginning of his sentences, but was apt to 
descend to ordinary pronouns before their end.) “ Sims like 
as if I’d no faith that night — ’fore I’d got a mile from where 
I left thee, some of our Body run up agin me and went and 
orfered me lodgin’, and there I bin iver since. Now, ma’am, 
if so be yew’ll trust thyself along o’ me, I’ll dew the right thing 
by ye, this time.” 

“ Anywhere with you, sir,” said Sue without a second 
thought, and still ignorant of her friend’s name. 

“ Tha’s better ! ” rumbled the mariner comfortingly from 
the depths of a mighty chest, and having looked her over 
with the eye of a man who had seen some life, ordered a plate 
of sausages and potatoes placed before the girl, and watched 
her eat until she could eat no more. 

“ Thomas Furley, thee must call me, not Mister ; yew 
marn’t put no Misters tew it ; our folks don’t hold with no 
vain titles and pride. I be a Quaker now, dost thee see ? 
And now we’ll be gettin’ along home.” (Blessed word.) 


BOOK IV 

HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


CHAPTER I 

A HAVEN OF REFUGE 

D ETWEEN Seething Lane and Trinity Square, abutting 
13 upon historic Tower Hill, runs a passage misnamed 
Catherine Court. The origin of the name I will not stop to 
discuss, nor whose is the cognisance which crests the wrought- 
iron grille at either end of the little thoroughfare, a demi- 
negress, or belle sauvage, cinctured and garlanded, bearing 
dextrally a palm. Within these gates you shall find ten grim 
buildings now let as offices, which were dwellings at the time 
of our story, dating, at a guess, from Dutch William’s day, 
small, dark and cramped, four floors of two rooms apiece 
served by a staircase. Their front windows stare uncom- 
promisingly into those across the court ; their backs look 
out into yards so tiny as to suggest the airing of one pillow- 
slip at a time. These in the eighteenth century were the 
homes of substantial merchants of the second class, who might 
look, if they were persons of unimpaired constitutions, to see 
their sixtieth birthdays ; most of them, I think, died younger. 
To bring up families in such surroundings they were forbidden 
to hope. It was the deaths of his children which drove the 
cit afield. 

Here in the year 1779 dwelt a certain Phanuel Hippisley, 
shipowner, and it is with him and with his that we have to 
do in this chapter. 


The bell of St. Olave’s, Hart Street, at the top of the lane, 
struck seven. The clock of Allhallows Barking, in Tower 
Street at the bottom, corroborated after an interval sufficient 


176 HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 

to accentuate self-respect and give colour to a claim for 
independent judgement. 

Without, it was thick, cold, and as dark as a winter’s morn- 
ing in town has a right to be. Within No. 6 Catherine Court 
it was warm and cozy. A cheerful little fire which had found 
ts purpose in life since a smoky birth an hour before, purred 
in a small wainscotted room upon the first floor front, where 
Mr. Hippisley, who had left his chamber across the landing 
half an hour earlier, sate with his back to the hearth and his 
feet upon a demijohn of hot water, masticating slowly, for 
his teeth were few and precious. He wore a little black wig 
which went somewhat oddly with the crowsfeet and wrinkles 
of the face it framed — a sharp-featured, non-committal, letter- 
of-the-law, welcome-to-all-you-can-get-from-me sort of face, 
the visage of a man of business, strict but just, and capable 
of kindness if you could get the right side of him. But of this 
amiable weakness he was resolutely unconscious, and, one 
fears, would have been somewhat ashamed of his lapses had 
these come to the knowledge of his acquaintance. He wore 
around his throat a rather dingy white neck-cloth, and was 
otherwise very plainly dressed in a long-skirted coat of pepper- 
and-salt with knee-breeches and waistcoat of the same. His 
stockings were grey-ribbed worsted-knit ; there was not a 
point of colour about him, nor a hint of the possession of either 
of the precious metals. Such was Phanuel Hippisley, un- 
married, methodical, abstemious, and punctually honest, a 
Quaker of the Quakers, and of the straitest sect of that religion. 

As for the room in which he sate, ’twas dingily bare to 
our eyes, though precisely right in those of its owner. There 
was never an ornament on the mantelshelf, nor a print upon 
the walls. These were covered with books to the top of the 
panelling ; books lay in piles in the corners, and between the 
three unused chairs ; and such books ! Folios some, and 
quartos some, and some Elzevirs, but all, or nearly all, in the 
learned languages. 

The master of the house masticated to the seventh stroke 
of the clock before taking off the remains of his breakfast 
beer ; then, having wiped his lip, closed the little Greek 
Father in which he was reading as he ate, pushed his plate 
from him and snuffed the candle, he reached for the Bible, 
which lay within arm’s length upon the ledge of his scrutoire 
(small was the room), jingled a shrill-tongued hand-bell and 
awaited results. 

Followed a pushing back of chairs in the room overhead, 
the sitting-room of his housekeeper Jemima and her husband 
(and Mr. Hippisley’s clerk), Jasper Tutty. Their bedroom 
was upon the same floor at the back. To be precise (and 


A HAVEN OF REFUGE 


177 

this household was precision exemplified), the second floor 
was theirs, as the first floor was their master’s, and the ground 
floor the Firm’s, sheer commerce. The basement was neutral 
territory, copper and coals. 

Of the third floor and its occupants we will speak presently 
and at large. 

Let us first realise the Hippisley household, its master, 
already described, served in their diverse capacities by an 
elderly couple. Thus had these three dwelt in a taciturn 
amity and mutual respect for six-and-twenty years without 
addition to, or diminution from, their number, until three 
weeks before the opening of this chapter. 

But I find myself anticipating, and must bring my facts 
up to date or we shall never know where we are. It was 
six-and-twenty years since Jemima Truelove, Quakeress and 
widow, a person of the discreetest and soberest demeanour, 
darner of stockings and preparer of meals to her celibate 
master, had asked his permission to take in as her lodger his 
confidential clerk, Jasper Tutty. All three were members 
of the Society of Friends, worshipped at the Bull and Mouth 
Meeting-House, Gracechurch Street, had known one another 
for years, and were even then middle-aged. Consent had 
been given ; marriage had followed, a natural and desirable 
sequence, which, however, it appeared that the master of the 
house had not anticipated, and against which he bore his 
testimony by persistently regarding the husband’s status 
as that in which he had first carried his hat upstairs. In the 

I counting-house he was Jasper, in the rooms above he was 
still “ thy lodger.” For six days a week on the floor devoted 
to business, where, from their shelves, rows of old ledgers 
awaited the fires of a day of judgement which still delayed, 
and watched the filling-up of their successors, master and 
man, in complete accord, drew charter-parties, examined 
policies of assurance, scrutinised bills of lading, and attended 
to the needs of the Hippisley fleet of ten well-found brigs. 
Outside the house, on their walks to and from meeting, 
their converse was entirely amicable ; it was only within-door, 
and after the hours of business, that the employer applied to 
his old servant (and friend) a term which kept in remembrance 
his ancient grudge. 

I would not have you think that these were trivialities 
which amused an uneventful existence ; during his forty years 
and more of ship-owning, Friend Hippisley had seen reverses 
of fortune. Two of his bottoms had been taken by the French ; 
one had been posted at Lloyd’s missing (ominous word !) and 
three had made shipwreck in one form or another. In these 
latter adventures Jasper Tutty had borne a man’s part, over- 


178 HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 

seeing the salving of freight at Sheringham ; posting over 
snowy roads to Lydd to take over a strand. During his 
master’s one serious illness, he, acting upon a power of at- 
torney, had successfully kept things going, and had excellent 
reasons for believing that his employer trusted and under- 
stood him, and for his own part cared not a jot by what name 
he was called. 

Being sure of his ground, he could take a liberty upon 
occasion, and of his own motion had offered house-room and 
hospitality to one Thomas Furley, an ex-gunner in the service 
of the East India Company, who, having for conscience’ sake 
refused any longer to bear arms, had lost his rating and 
employment. This man, having given such practical demon- 
stration of his adherence to the principles of Friends, had 
recently been received into membership. In the last quarter 
of the eighteenth century such admissions were rare. The 
followers of Penn were no longer persecuted ; they were asleep 
upon their father’s reputations, and, incidentally, had grown 
well-to-do. The Furley case made a pleasant noise in the 
ears of a safe and comfortable generation, and Jasper Tutty, 
who had never suffered in person or purse for the views which 
he professed, welcomed this new convert to his hearth quite in 
the spirit in which a tailor stands treat to a soldier home from 
a campaign. 

It was the wife who broke the news to the master of the 
house. 

“ Know him ? Furley ? ” answered the master to her 
introductory question. “ I was upon the appointment to visit 
him on his application. Didn’t make much out of him. A 
person with little to say for himself. Told us a ‘ you,’ ‘ your,’ 
Sunday sort of story. We recommended reception. Well, 
what of Thomas Furley ? ” 

“ I never did see anything to equal you men,” remarked 
Jemima. “Thou ‘recommended reception,’ put his name 
upon the Meeting-book and left him just as hungry as thou 
found him. Oh, you men-friends ! ” 

“ Hungry ? What’s that ? How ? Thou ’lit not tell me 
he was in want. Then what did such a person mean by 
applying for membership with Us ? ” 

Friend Hippisley was only expressing the natural resent- 
ment of a comfortably busy person desirous of standing well 
with himself, who, whilst jogging his daily round, has run up 
against an intrusive and angular fact. 

“ Thou art better disposed than thou wishes thy friends to 
think thee, Phanuel Hippisley,” said the woman severely. 
Having made her confession with more than a touch of a 
judge pronouncing sentence, she stood pleating the corner 


A HAVEN OF REFUGE 


179 

of her apron. Her master, who knew in his heart that he had 
a weakness for close-fisted, adequate, private kindnesses 
which he would have blushed to have had known, sucked 
in his lips. 

“ And I’ve said to Jasper often and often, ‘ That front 
attic was meant and intended for a prophet’s chamber ; and 
we with life slipping away ’ ; and he’ve said, ‘ But where’s 
the prophet ? ’ So, when friend Furley come along it did 
seem a leading of Providence, and I felt sure as thou wouldst 
raise no difficulties.” 

“ Me ? ” grunted her master. “ Thou always did do just 
what pleased thee in this house, Jemima. Difficulties ? But 
this at least wasn’t thy doing. If the man is in let him keep 

in, but ” with an effort to recapture the position — “ this 

mustn’t occur again. . . . Seems to me thy lodger has taken 
in a lodger.” 

The hospitality was amply repaid. Never at No. 6, 
Catherine Court was better bargain driven. The latest con- 
vert to peace principles might strike fastidious members of 
the religious society which had admitted him as a brand 
plucked from the burning (with some of its soot adherent), 
and in truth bore himself more like a weather-hardened 
Peter than a saint of Caesar’s household ; but, as Phanuel 
Hippisley presently discovered, ’twas impossible to put him 
out of his place aboard-ship. As master stevedore, rigger, 
storekeeper, and ship’s husband at large, the man was in- 
valuable. In Bugsby’s Reach lay the firm’s latest purchase, 
a fine ‘ snow ’ of three hundred tons, which Hippisley had 
determined to convert to a brig. The oversight of the work 
was committed to Furley, also the stowage of cargo. 

Now it had been upon the night of Susan’s unfortunate 
marriage that Furley, exactly at the end of his resources, was 
chance (?) met, recognised, questioned out of his secret in- 
digence, taken home and entertained by Jasper Tutty. 

And it was three weeks later that the ex-gunner, in charge 
of the Mary of Yarmouth, aforesaid, whilst receiving freight, 
had light vouchsafed him upon the marriage ; a matter which 
still troubled his conscience. A sea-chest came over the ship’s 
side bearing an inscription in paint that had not had time to 
harden. 

MAJOR C. BOYLE, 

H.M. Hardenberg’s Regt. Foot, Gibraltar 

The thing had hardly reached the deck before it was re- 
claimed by a red -faced and imperative gentleman with a 
noticeable Irish accent in a dinghy hailing from the transport 


180 HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 

Mary of Shoreham , five lower on the tier, a gentleman who 
abused the wherry man for delivering his kit to the wrong 
address, and who professed himself its owner, the Major Boyle 
of the inscription. No consignment-note had come with the 
chest, nor had any receipt been given for it. “ ’Tis not on my 
manifest, ye can have it. ’Tis just a mistake, and I’d have 
ye to stop your swearing,” had been Furley’s word as the chest 
went overside again, and it was only when the claimant had 
departed with his property, leaving the blundering wherryman 
unpaid, save with ill words and an offer of worse, that the 
Quaker remembered the bridegroom into whose hands he 
had given a shrinking girl three weeks before ; a deed of which 
he had repented ever since. 

Furley thought slowly, and at the time had his hands full : 
there were stevedores below and a lighter alongside with 
XX from Thrale’s Brewery destined to appease the 
thirsts of British soldiers at Gibraltar : duty tied him to 
his post, but, whilst denied instant action, he thought the 
more. Cornelius Tighe, Major, was the name of the bride- 
groom upon the lines in his pocket-book, yet here was the 
same man passing himself off as Major C. Boyle, and bound for 
Gibraltar. What had become of the lady ? 

By the time that lighter was empty, a strong suspicion 
glowed in the Quaker’s honest bosom, a surmise which pricked 
him to inquire, and if need be to act (“ I were on-faithful, 
that time, ’tis sartainly my job”). But that contrary luck, 
or fate, or overruling, which thwarts and entangles and 
guides human purpose, intervened. Whilst the Mary of 
Yarmouth was taking in cargo, her all-but namesake the Mary 
of Shoreham had battened down the last of her hatches, set her 
* head-sails, cast loose from her mooring-buoy, and was gone 
down the river with the tide. 

Furley watched her departure with some not unnatural 
chagrin. 

” ’Tis the will o’ Providence, seemin’ly, but ” He 

spat overside, and that very night the good fellow came upon 
the deserted bride in that Minories cook-shop, yes, upon the 
veritable Susan Agatha Travis of the lines. 

The girl’s exhaustion, her physical and mental distress, 
warned her preserver against telling her what he had seen 
that afternoon. She could not have borne the news ; it would 
keep ; had he not the name by which the man was now passing, 
his destination, and the ship in which he sailed, safe in his 
pocket-book ? 

And thus, having dealt with arrears and cleared up to the 
point, we get back to Mr. Phanuel Hippisley, still with his 
feet upon the demijohn and his finger upon the hand-bell, 


A HAVEN OF REFUGE 


181 


the Book open before him, his spectacles across his nose, and 
bis eye upon the door, listening to the feet of his household 
upon the stair. 

i Now Mr. Hippisley, although elderly, retained his faculties ; 
his ear was particularly delicate, and from long practice was 
versed in the wonted sounds of his small household. To the 
footfalls of his ancient housemates he was well accustomed, 
to those of the Addition he was by way of growing familiar, 
and it seemed to him that on this morning the family made 
more noise than usual in coming downstairs to its exercises. 

The door was decorously rapped, and opened, and into the 
dim -lit room came Jasper and Jemima according to the usage 
of over a quarter of a century, an unobtrusive middle-class 
couple. Close behind them came the Addition, that four- 
square mass of seafaring manhood whom we have met in 
other surroundings, but in none more to his liking. He was 
bearing a stool in hand, a novelty in procedure which his 
master and host observed with surprise, for there were already 
j three vacant chairs in the room. Then Phanuel Hippisley, 
his finger upon the open page, straightened his back with a 
I slight start, for a fourth person was framed by the dark door- 
way, a woman, for she came forward softly, gently, and with 
hesitation, a girl, young, beautiful, and sad. 

Mr. Phanuel Hippisley took a long slow breath, regarding 
j this apparition over the tops of his glasses with something 
; approaching aversion. Worse (if there be degrees in in- 
complete spiritual declension), he almost broke his own rule 
of never addressing his household before the Family exercise. 
So, giving a touch to the spectacles with the hand that was not 
engaged in marking the verse, and with a slight movement 
of the nostril and upper lip, by way of perfecting the sit, the 
good man addressed himself to the passage for the day, 
droning steadily through the chapter in an unemotional nasal 
staccato reserved for these occasions, and accenting the final 
syllables of blessed and cursed, eyes and lips charged with the 
work in hand , mere automata, his mind the while at work upon 
this fresh encroachment. (It was carrying things too far . . . 
he must make a stand. . . . Jemima was getting above 
herself . . . give her an inch.) The voice of the reader, un- 
heard by himself, who was elsewhere arranging his plan of 
campaign, rose and fell in sing-song cadences derived from 
early recollections of similar occasions sixty years before, 
when his father’s father, a relic of the times of martyrdom, 
who had testified before the Lord Mayor and suffered for it in 
Newgate, divided the scripture in his son’s household. The 
chapter, taken in rotation, not by choice, was Matt, xxv., a 
chapter of forty-six verses, known to the reader by heart. 


182 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


who could have repeated it blindfold, and which, from ex- 
treme familiarity, had long ceased to connote definite ideas. 
Now and again, despite his preoccupation, a word or a verse 
pricked through and touched him with a novel sense of con- 
gruity. 

“ — the lord of those servants cometh , and reckoneth with 
them.” 

Might there or might there not have been detected the 
faintest hint of subdued complacency in the reader’s voice ? 
It was gone in a moment ; he proceeded without haste or 
rest. “ Unprofitable servant ” came a little later, and ap- 
positely. But the words of the Book have a way of getting 
through even the indurated callosities of an elderly formalist 
wrapped in the self-complacent virtue of an honestly spent 
life. The chapter in hand concludes, as we know, with a 
tremendous forecast of the Last Assize, the ultimate weighing 
and separation of the doers from the talkers, and a summons 
to every child of woman to remember others and to forget 
self, under which even a Shaftesbury and a Howard must 
shiver. 

“ Depart from me, ye curs&d” (ye cursed ! can this be the 
voice of the veritable Christ ?) For I was an hungered and 
ye gave Me no meat : I was thirsty and ye gave Me no drink : 
I was a stranger and ye took Me not in ; naked and ye 
clothed Me not, sick and in prison and ye visited Me not. . . 
The voice went on delivering the despairing appeal of the fat, 
and the comfortable, and the careless, stuffed ear and averted 
eye, too late aroused — and hesitated for some fraction of a 
heart-beat over the sentence. 

“ Inasmuch as ye did it not unto the least of these, ye did it 
not to Me ! ” 

The reader stopped. His eyes closed. The morning exercises 
of that household were customarily concluded by thirty-five 
or forty seconds of a silence so absolute as to suggest that the 
bodily functions of the participants in the rite were temporarily 
suspended, and that not merely muscular action, but respira- 
tion and circulation were in abeyance. When, as one awaken- 
ing from a trance, Phanuel Hippisley removed his feet from his 
hot- water bottle, raised his eyebrows and closed the Book, the 
secular business of the day was understood to have begun, 
business for which these moments of introspection were the 
necessary preparation. It was then that in the normal course 
of things Jasper Tutty would have descended to his ledgers, 
leaving his Jemima to confer with her master as to the dinner 
and the affairs of her province. 

But on this particular morning the signal of dismissal 
was delayed, and when it came, was incomplete and indefinite. 


A HAVEN OF REFUGE 


183 

Friend Hippisley opened his eyes but did not close the Bible, 
nor did he give the customary scrape with his feet. “If the 
trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself 
for the battle ? ” Not Jasper, nor Jemima ; they, good souls, 
whilst recognising the necessity for an explanation, were for 
postponing it as long as might be possible. Nor Phanuel 
Hippisley, who, for all his irritation, was as unwarlike a person 
as you shall meet in a twelvemonth, and fluttered beside by 
the physical proximity of a comely and modest young woman — 
such a proximity as had not befallen him for many a year — and 
— and, I repeat, a new and disquieting sense of the significance 
of certain verses of Holy Writ. Hence, whilst the three 
elders were waiting upon one another, Furley leapt into the 
breach. Clearing his throat sonorously and placing one great 
hand upon the table-cloth, he drew Susan forward with the 
other, using a singular and paternal gentleness. “ Phanuel 
Hippisley, sir,” he began, “ this here be a young female, 
Susan — Agathy — Tighe, by name, as I warnts thee to sorter 
run thy eye oover afore I speak to thee about her. Susan, 
ma’am, this here be Friend Hipp’sley, as thee’ve heerd tell on ; 
and, now, if thee dawn’t mind steppin’ on deck — upstairs, 
I mean, we’ll talk thee oover a bit.” 

The girl thus drawn to the front timidly raised her beautiful 
eyes, and met those of the gray -faced elder, a-shine in the 
candle-light, surprised, steady, and critical. 

“ He looks good,” thought she. 

“ She looks good,” thought he, and watched her curtsey and 
pass from the room ungreeted, modest and silent. 

“ And, who, may I ask — is this — er — person ? — and — ” 
began the good man, hesitatingly at first, but with the sound 
of his own voice came courage to protest against the intrusion ; 
and had he been permitted to finish his first sentence, it is 
possible that his perturbed indecision might have crystallised 
into speech of a hardness surprising even to himself, and out- 
running first intention, but which once uttered, his strength 
of will would scarcely have permitted him to recede from. 
Moreover, crystals have sometimes a cutting edge. 

But Furley bore him down : Furley, leaning half across 
the little table ; Furley of the vibrant voice, deep-set eye, 
and gnarly hand, was speaking, was plunged into his recital 
up to the neck. There was no stopping him ; the man’s per- 
sonality carried everything before him. Nor did Hippisley 
stand upon his dignity or his rights as men of temper do, but 
conceded and listened, and was presently drawn in and 
interested in that gruff, rumbling, headlong story. 

“ And, as her husband — if so be ’tis a marriage — ” the 
lines lay between them upon the table, “ and, as the rawskle 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


184 

hev bin and gone and giv’ her the slip and shipped for Gibraltar, 
and, as by the finger o’ Providence, I were ’lowed t'o see him 
start, yes, and be taking in cargo for the same dadical port, I 
sez, sez I, ‘ She’ll be arter follerin’ of her man, sure-/y, so 
I laid it afore the Lord larst night, and He sims willin’ for 
me to give her a berth out in the Mary — I paying what’s fair, 
for ’tis no consarn o’ thine, Friend Phanuel, coming as it did 
all along o’ my takin’ a course over the edge o’ my chart, and 
not seeking guidance ontill the mischief was done.” 

“ Most extraordinary story that I ever heard in my life ! ” 
gasped Hippisley, coming to the surface as from a long im- 
mersion, feebly combative and seeking support where he 
could get it. “ Most extraordinary, and I must add, most in- 
convenient. And, I did say, Jemima, that it was not to occur 
again : thou remembers ? Yes, where is this sort of thing to 
stop ? Where can we put her ? ” weakening. “ Am I to be 
crowded out of house and home ? If I pass over this, whom 
will you be springing upon me next ? Here is thy lodger’s 
lodger brings home a lodger ! ” 

Thus appealed to, the housekeeper came into it. “I know 
— I see — and it’s very sad ” (an indefinite stroke aimed at 
large), “ and there’s the back attic, as thou never puts foot 
into from one year’s end to the next, and the poor young 
thing, where was she to go ? and, oh, Phanuel Hippisley, she 
is a dear ! — a dear ! ” the faded old eyes winking and filling 
behind dimmed glasses, and the wrinkled old nose going like 
a rabbit’s. •“ And, after all, there must be some meaning in 
scripture — as to taking in strangers, now ” 

But here the pent wrath of Master Furley broke dam. 
“ Took her in ! Tha’s jest what he did. But if I’d aknowd in 
time what the (by-our-lady) rawskle was up tew, I’d a-broke 
his (condemned) neck for ’m and took the consekences.” 

“ Tut, tut, Thomas ; thou forgets thyself, and thy Christian 
profession ; thou art One of Us, mind,” was Hippisley’s mild 
rebuke. 

The mariner plucked his wig from his head, tweaked a curl 
from the caul, strode to the hearth, and laid his expiatory 
sacrifice upon the red coals without a word. 


CHAPTER 11 


NO. 6, CATHERINE COURT 

Ah, Mr. Hippisley, I am fortunate in finding you dis- 
engaged — although I fear I shall prove an unwelcome caller, 
j as usual.” 

The speaker was the rector of St. Olave’s, a grave, shy, 
middle-aged man with the pale, delicately featured face of a 
scholar. He had known the Quaker by sight for twenty 
years, and had distrained upon his goods five times for 
church rates. It was by the purest chance in the world, 
the accident of a copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions in the 
original Greek having been seized, five years since (by mis- 
take, in a table drawer), that he had discovered in this 
recalcitrant sectary a kindred spirit, a fellow-student, and 
the one and only man in his parish with whom he could 
converse upon equal terms. 

” Amazing ! ” exclaimed the rector when the light dawned 
upon him — the fellow could, and did, read Plato with his feet 
upon the fender, albeit he preferred the Fathers. He could 
give you whole screeds of Chrysostom ore votundo, at a 
moment’s notice ; he knew, positively knew, his Testament 
from end to end in the original, and was familiar with the 
apocryphal gospels and epistles. Yet the man would be 
damned, infallibly damned, sir ; no help for him ! He was 
not only schismatic, but unbaptized — frightful ! “ Don’t 

blame me, Mr. Hippisley ; I wouldn’t singe a hair of your wig, 
myself, but, positively, I see no hope of escape for ye ; I 
couldn’t even plead invincible ignorance for ye — I can only 
thank my stars the matter is out of my hands, and leave ye 
to the uncovenanted mercies of the Almighty ! ” 

“ Where I am well content to be left, my friend,” the 
Quaker had replied, and, exchanging amicable pinches, the 
disputants had parted for the time. Bu., they met again, 
and when they met they disputed, politely, as the learned 
who respect one another’s learning, have at last learnt to 
dispute, but neither had ever crossed the threshold of the 

185 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


1 86 


other (a counting-house was another matter, and was only 
entered by the rector upon business, his own business, as 
upon the present occasion). 

“ I trust thou art well, Friend Tomlyn,” said Hippisley, 
beaming kindly over his spectacles upon his caller. “ Wilt 
thou sit ? What is it — another of thy church rates on the 
stocks ? ” 

“Launched, my dear sir: have ye not seen the demand- 
note ? I just looked in to put ye upon your guard. I know 
it is little use asking ye to be reasonable, but let us have no 
mistakes this time. I profess I believe ye take joyfully the 
spoiling of your goods — I don’t. If anything ye really value 
is taken, ’tis I shall be distressed ’’ (chuckling ruefully) ; 
“ Indeed, I shall make it my business to buy it in and return 
it, I warn ye now ! So spare my feelings — and pocket. Come, 
the men shall look in on Wednesday week (Fourth Day, you 
call it, don’t ye ?). They shall have orders to enter the 
first floor front. Am I right ? I thank ye.” Hippisley 
had smilingly nodded. “ The amount, with their charges, 
will be five thirteen nine, a monstrous sum, I admit ; but ’tis 
your own obduracy that piles it up. But we won’t go into 
that — — ” 




“ I thank thee, friend, for the forbearance- 


“ Ironical, as usual, Mr. Hippisley. But, to these arrange- 
ments — can we ? — shall I ? ” 

“ I will leave thee with my clerk presently,” said Hippisley, 
who knew that between Jasper and the rector a perfect 
understanding subsisted, and that the raiders would find a 
bag containing the precise sum required upon the table of 
the first room which they entered. 

“ Nay, do not rise, unless indeed thou art pressed for time, 
and I think I am the only one of our people in thy parish. 
I desire thy advice ” 

“ Indeed ? ” The visitor was all polite attention and 
solicitude ; advice ! — this was a new departure. “ I shall be 
most happy to place my poor abilities at your service.” 

“ Thou hast possibly heard of the recent additions to my 
household.” 

The rector nodded non-committally, he had heard — 
reports, most of which he had frankly disbelieved. He was 
no busybody ; he trusted his old neighbour, and whilst 
feeling bound to deplore his prospects in the life to come, 
would have gone bail for his good behaviour in this to any 
amount whatever. 

Thus encouraged, Hippisley unfolded the story of Susan’s 
marriage. He told it slowly, accurately, and without com- 
ment or embellishment. The rector heard him to the end, 


No. 6, CATHERINE COURT 187 

steady-eyed, an excellent listener (which is more than can 
be said for some of his cloth). 

“ Poor child ! ” he murmured, when the tale came to an 
end ; he had met her in the lane twice or thrice, and, like 
every one else, had been struck by her beauty, her grace, and 
modesty. 

“ Is she married ? ” asked Hippisley, coming to the point. 

“ That depends upon whether the person who read the 
service was in orders,” replied the rector, nursing his knee. 
“ Irregularities of time, and so forth, are really immaterial; 
the honest intention goes for something (not for everything, 
as you Quakers have had occasion to know ; it took an Act 
of Parliament to legalise your marital relations).” Hippisley 
nodded. “ But the Church has never been extreme in the 
matter — has always leaned to the protection of the woman 
and her offspring. A ceremony otherwise irregular, if per- 
formed in facie ecclesice would hold good, even if violence 
were employed, as in these Irish abductions. But you don’t 
allege ? ” 

“ There was no violence. And I cannot say whether the 
officiating clerk was in orders or no. This paper is all we 
have to go upon.” 

“It is just possible that I may be able to ascertain that 
for you ; it seems material, very material. Oct. — that will 
be Octavius, doubtless, Baskett. I wonder if the name be 
assumed or real ? M.A. That is a clue. We will try to 
trace him through his university.” 

“ My friend Thomas Furley has identified the house, 11 said 
Hippisley, “between the Saracen’s Head and Martin Outwich, 
but Camomile Street is not in thy parish ” 

“ Immaterial. If he will furnish me with the address, or, 
better still, accompany me, I will try what I can get from this 

woman. And, now, as you are obviously busy ” the 

rector got his heels under him and arose, extending his hand, 
“ and, whilst I think of it, that exhortation to follow bishops 
and pastors occurs in Ignatius to the Smyvnceans .” 

“ It does ; in that disputable last chapter. Did it come 
to thee too after our chat ? But thou wilt do well not to 
rest too much upon it.” 

“You consider it an interpolation ? ” 

“ There is a suspiciously late construction, and, at best, 
it is unapostolic in feeling (written at a time when church 
organisation was changing), and plainly with a bias ; the 
writer holds a brief for the New, which was ousting the Old.” 

“ Eh ? How so ? I really fail ” 

‘ * Episkopos — originally a secular office, and quite secondary, 
as I read it, created to relieve the travelling evangelist from 


i88 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


detail, and give him more liberty — was beginning to usurp 
the apostolic authority.” 

“ So ? You will be telling me that the coadjutor (chan- 
cellor, rather, the man upon the spot who kept the purse) 
outgrew his ordinary ? ” 

“ Who must have been often absent — on the road, or in 
hiding, or in prison.” 

“ Plausible, but unproven, Mr. Hippisley. I should like 
to see your data. But, whatever the origin of the change, 
the Church sanctioned it.” 

“ Condoned it, and much beside — persecution ” 

“ Oh, you Friends ! Do you never forgive ? ” — moving 
towards the door. “ But I must be going. By the by, 
might I ? — just a word with Mr. Tutty ? And, whilst I 
think of it, send that rough-hewn proselyte of yours round 
to the rectory this evening. We may discover something. 
A hard case — a sad case ! ” 

But the woman of the house in Camomile Street was by 
this time aware, and by dint of lapses of memory, impossible 
suggestions, and lying of the futile-obvious sort, defeated her 
interrogators by impressing the clergyman with the worth- 
lessness of truth itself from such lips. 

“ This here’s a-gettin’ too hot-like,” muttered the harridan 
as she watched them leave, her eye to a hole in the dirty 
blind, and, going upstairs, fetched and pawned the belongings 
left in her charge by Baskett. 

Cambridge knew nothing of the man, but Oxford owned to 
having bestowed upon him her Bachelorship of Arts (not 
the Mastership of the signature). He had come up from 
Shrewsbury. Here was a clue worth following. The Rev. 
James Atcherley, M.A., Head of Shrewsbury School, had the 
name upon his books, and suggested reference to a certain 
Lord Duddingstone, who was reputed to have paid the school 
fees for the lad whilst in statu pupillari. The Rev. Eustace 
Tomlyn, now hot upon the scent, and reporting progress to 
Friend Hippisley whenever they met in the street, addressed 
a civil letter to my lord and took a rebuff. 

As a matter of fact, the courteous request for information 
as to the clerical status of his late amanuensis came before 
the Viscount upon one of his bad days. The gout was holding 
him by his most sensitive toe ; he had just had a terrific 
scene with the Hon. Frederick, who, being discovered up to 
his eyes in debt at Colchester, had been compelled to ex- 
change into a regiment of the King’s Hanoverians quartered 
at Gibraltar, and was by way of being shipped thither at 
short notice to escape worse. The wretch had wept and 
writhed upon the carpet, confessing to enormities that raised 


No. 6, CATHERINE COURT 189 

his unhappy father’s gorge, and at length had been forcibly 
removed from the room and house, and put upon shipboard 
at Gravesend under arrest and with strictly empty pockets. 

This was the March convoy, the one which rendezvoused 
in the Solent. Travis sailed by it, unknown to his old enemy, 
restored to his name and position, an ensign in the 12th 
Regiment of Foot, but with letters which would ensure his 
being “ lent ” to the Garrison Artillery, a corps which stood 
in need of young officers of education and ingenuity. Hence 
the lad took with him the latest works in French, English, 
and German, and a head full of elevations, muzzle-velocities, 
bursting-charges, time-fuses, and the composition of powders 
and light balls, long and short chases, and whatever else was 
engaging the attention of the one scientific corps in the 
British Army of that day. Justin saw him off, not with 
empty pockets, and with more than a half promise to follow 
him, for Chester had been drawn blank, and Sue having been 
traced to London in company with a lady who was going to 
Gibraltar, and an Irish major who was believed to have been 
subsequently seen with her in the Park, and who was thought 
to have sailed for the Rock (although the name was a difficulty), 
it was conceivable that the lost girl might have drifted 
thither. 

But why ? and in what capacity ? There were tragic 
possibilities about this, or any, theory of the poor child’s 
disappearance, which the men dared not discuss with one 
another. She was but eighteen — think of it ; and so utterly 
inexperienced. Her brother’s face hardened and aged. He 
blamed himself. “ She needed me. She must have written : 
whilst I ! ” Justin hoped doggedly on. 

In a word, every clue had failed them, nor did lavish offers 
of reward bring further information. 

Gibraltar was the last hope. Travis was impatient to 
be gone. 

That he, Justin assisting, had exhausted the potentialities 
before sailing, goes without saying. Their attempts to 
interest Miss Camilla Draycott in the quest had failed. That 
lady’s attitude was inexplicable to her nephew, who knew 
nothing of the recognition in the Park, nor that the Rev. 
Eustace Tomlyn had preceded him with unavailing appeals, 
and that her young kinsman’s urgent requests for an inter- 
view were construed by the bitter little spinster as designs 
upon her pocket. Her door remained obdurately closed. 
She passes out of this story. Let us pity her. Of all sinners 
the loveless is the most certainly and severely punished. 

Is this discursive ? Possibly, the threads of this story 
are for the moment not so much entangled as wind-borne 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


190 

and dispersed. Let us catch, then, at my Lord Duddingstone 
in his character as a correspondent. The noble Viscount’s 
(new) amanuensis, obviously writing under dictation, be- 
sought the Rev. E. Tomlyn to believe that his lordship rejoiced 
to attest the fact that the man Baskett was an ingrate scoun- 
drel and a common thief, consistent to the last, in that having 
embezzled from his benefactor, he had since robbed the 
gallows by self-destruction. 

His lordship further requested the Rev. E. Tomlyn to 
address him no further upon a subject at once painful and 
unsavoury, and begged permission of the Rev. E. Tomlyn 
to subscribe himself his most obedient servant. 

“ Final, this ? eh, Mr. Hippisley ? ” queried the clergyman, 
with a lifting eyebrow, showing the letter. 

“ He has not answered thy question.” 

“ In so many words ? No. But his silence is probably 
inadvertent. I have ascertained that there is no Baskett 
in orders in this diocese, nor in the province of Canterbury.” 

“ I thank thee, friend, for thy labours. There is no more 
to be done in the matter. It would seem that there was no 
legal marriage.” 

“No legal marriage,” echoed the rector mournfully. 
“ Poor child ! You are a kind friend to her, Hippisley, a 
very father. I wish I could think that ye will reap your 
reward — elsewhere . ’ ’ 

The old Quaker blinked in silence, still upon his feet, await- 
ing the delayed departure of his visitor, who seemed to have 
something yet upon his mind, probably the usual something. 
Out it came. 

“You must know, Hippisley, a man with your mind, your 
head, your reading ! ’Tis frightful; I think of ye at night. 
You officiate as a minister, I believe (is that the word ?) 
among your people— ” 

“ Nay, I have never felt liberty to open my lips in meeting 
— I have no message.” 

“ Really ? You surprise me ! What is your Society thinking 

about ? How can it spare ye ? And, to think ! ” The 

rector, forgetful of the business which had brought him, went 
forth into the court suppressing the conclusion of his remark, 
painfully percipient of a proximate waste of excellent ma- 
terial. Oh, the pathos of damning so ripe a scholar and so 
lucid and charitable a soul upon general principles ! 

And time ran, and the lengthening days of March stirred 
the slowly moving blood in old veins ; in those of Mr. Phanuel 
Hippisley, to wit. 

For a fortnight after Susan’s first appearance at morning 


No. 6, CATHERINE COURT 191 

“ reading ” (family worship), her host had secretly resented, 
deprecated, and disapproved. He was not used to young 
people of either sex. Never in all the long, dry decades of a 
strenuously quiet life had he had anything to do with a 
“ young person.” As a little, plain-featured, poring boy, 
“ too fond of his book ever to make a man of business,” and 
with “ nothing in him,” he had been snubbed and sat upon 
by his own sex and ignored by the other. Driven in upon 
himself for sources of recreation and respect, he had had no 
occasion to “ make a covenant with his eyes that they 
should not look upon a maid ’ ’ ; poverty, an abstemious 
habit, and the engrossments of long business hours, the mid- 
night oil of the student, yea, and the maids themselves, 
had seen to that. A confirmed bachelor at twenty, he had 
never tried to change his condition. Incidentally he had 
given the lie to those who had thought ill of his parts, 
having quietly out-stayed competitors, and by dint of living 
upon a very little, and seldom making a mistake, had come 
into his own, and a considerable measure of other people’s. 
The old gentleman was reputed to be very rich, and knew 
himself to be well-to-do. He was immensely respected, as 
any man is likely to be whose few bare words are always 
and absolutely true, whilst enough of his subterranean 
beneficence had worked to the surface to save him from 
the stigma of miserliness. 

Yet this queer old stick was not happy. Not that he was 
miserable. His past lay even and white behind him, drab 
at its worst, nothing there seriously to challenge self-respect ; 
as to his future, he had long since come to an understanding 
with himself, with which we have nothing to do. It was his 
present, the life which was daily slipping through him faster 
and ever faster (Lord, how swift are the years of the old — 
even as the weaver’s shuttle !) — the transitoriness of things, 
I say, which gently troubled him at times when his active day 
was over, its work well done, freight secured, disputes amicably 
settled, the affairs of the Hippisley Fleet maintained upon 
their normal footing of sound workmanship and honest 
personnel. 'Twas at the fag-ends of laborious days such as 
these that a pining emptiness came over him ; a craving for — 
what ? His life had been as well lived as he knew how ; no 
regret gnawed at his heart, yet “ one thing, one at his soul’s 
full scope,” either he had missed, or itself had missed him. It 
was there, somewhere within him, this clamant, unnamed in- 
habitant ; not a disease, surely ? Nor a premonitory weaken- 
ing of the brain ? He satisfied himself upon both points. 
What, then ; spiritual declension ? He betook himself to 
prayer and deadened the unwelcome voice, for a time. 


192 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


With the coming of Susan the unrest revived. Its re 
crudescence was laid at her door with a conscious injustice 
that provoked reprisals. She was “ in the way.” (She slept 
in the hitherto unused attic, took her meals with those who 
enjoyed her company, and seldom crossed his path except at 
morning and evening exercises.) But the house “ was not 
convenient ” for such an inmate. (Pure selfishness, this, 
answered curtly enough by common sense to the effect that 
the young woman’s presence was temporary and unavoidable.) 

But ’twas the house divided (a division wholly unsuspected 
by the second floor and attics) ; Hippisley was found com- 
miserating himself upon an unspecified “ disturbance to his 
habits ” ; Phanuel riposting with denial of the fact, and con- 
gratulations to the firm upon having been instrumental for 
once in helping somebody with no claim upon it. Every 
morning was the silent dispute renewed, every evening, after 
a couple of hours over Ignatius to the Philadelphians or The 
Similitudes of Hermas, the dual personality found peace upon 
its knees. 

Susan’s appearance at the Quakers’ Meeting House, Grace- 
church Street, twice every First Day, and again on Fourth 
Day forenoons at the mid-week meeting (during which ex- 
cursion the office was closed and locked), created what one 
may perhaps describe as a silent uproar. The household, 
a party of five, was the subject of decorous speculations in 
the women’s lobby. Hippisley occupied a seat under the 
minister’s gallery, detached, unapproachable. The Tuttys, 
as was to be expected in the case of elderly and regular mem- 
bers, had seats not far below his, one upon either side, for the 
Friends separated the sexes during worship. Susan was left 
to the care of Furley, and all the younger friends agreed that 
it was pretty to see the burly mariner piloting the sweet, sad- 
eyed young creature to a seat hard by the door, and taking 
a place as near to her as the width of the dividing gangway 
permitted. 

The Hippisley boarding-house became a byword ; his 
fellow members watched these successive and surprising 
additions to his household with wonder, awaiting develop- 
ments ; the man himself, a tight-lipped, strong-willed person- 
age, entrenched behind a lifelong habit of reserve, invited no 
approaches. But what did those poor Tuttys think of it ? 

It appeared that the Tuttys, both man and wife, made a 
pleasure of it. Dear Thomas Furley was such company, such 
experiences, so interesting, so genuine, so simple, so truly 
good ! Whilst, as for Susan Tighe, she was a dear ! Thus 
Jemima, her husband concurring. 

Mother Nature had made the girl of noble materials, at once 


No. 6, CATHERINE COURT 


193 

fine and strong. The instincts of wife and mother moved 
graciously within her ; she would dry a gutter-baby’s tears and 
carry it over a crowded crossing. At the sight of frayed 
I button-holes her thimble burnt in her pocket. 

“ What is it makes thee so nice, Susan Tighe ? ” old Jemima 
would ask, peering at the girl with faded eyes over the rims 
of double-convex glasses. “ I never bore but one child, and 
the poor little mite died at the week’s end, and Jasper and I 
haven’t had much to say to other Friends’ children (and there’s 
no young people living in the court nowadays). No ; I can’t 
say I’m much given to the young, or taken up with their 
I ways, but ” 

“ But ” Sue’s sweetness and willingness had carried 

I her straight into the poor, dry old heart, affording it four 
| months of placid enjoyment, and a seven years’ aftermath of 
gentle, loving regret : daylight thoughts of that bitter spring 
I when the grim old house blossomed, and darkling bedside 
prayers for the unforgotten girl, ringed about by cannon- 
j smoke ; strange environment ! Yes, Susan was more than 
welcome. 

Also, it was quite understood all round that the arrange- 
| ment was of a temporary character ; the young person’s 
! husband having preceded her to some port to which one of 
the Hippisley brigs was bound, a passage out had been ar- 
ranged for her under Thomas Furley, and this being “gathered,” 
the exercised minds of women Friends who had concerned 
themselves in matters which in no wise touched them were 
at rest. 

But the mind of Phanuel Hippisley became less and less at 
rest as the weeks slipped past. 

The March days lengthened and the suns of early April 
warmed the forenoons. The sooty-coated city sparrows 
were now carrying straws. A thrush sang of mornings in the 
tree- tops in the Tower moat. Sue could hear the trills through 
her open attic-casement, beginning before the clack of the 
mallets began in Cooper’s Row — a sound reminding her sadly 
of America Square. Everybody was so kind to her ; these 
dear, sweet, old folks were goodness itself. It would grieve 
her to the heart to leave them ; but yet — oh, to be sailing 
south — south ! to Con, to her husband ! all should yet 
be explained and put right. 

But with Phanuel Hippisley were perplexity and indecision. 
That one-sided fit of resentment at the girl’s unseasonable 
presence in his house had been brief. It had been followed 
by a genuine and disinterested concern for her welfare. 

As to this elusive and dubious husband, he had been able 
to assure himself that no such person as Major Cornelius 

13 


194 HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 

Boyle — or Tighe — held a commission in the British Army. 
(That he might be in King George’s Hanoverian service did 
not occur to him.) Still, Thomas Furley’s testimony was not 
to be lightly set aside. A man, an Irishman, believed to be 
the man, had sailed for Gibraltar, and Sue, having learnt of 
this, was for following him as way might open. Hippisley, 
with a heavy heart, set himself to open the way. 

Yes, Furley was very positive as to that Irishman’s identity, 
too positive, indeed, but Thomas was not a born Friend. 
Had not Jasper Tutty, who was upon terms with the managing 
clerks of all the shipping houses in the City and Surrey side, 
got sight of that transport’s manifest ? Neither a Major 
Boyle not a Major Tighe had sailed by the Mary of Shoreham, 
nor had she (ostensibly) cleared for Gibraltar; but, with 
hostilities upon the point of breaking out, that might very 
well be a blind. Troops were undoubtedly on board, and 
under the command of a Major St. John, who wzis to land 
them at a place called Pendennis, a port unknown to Tutty. 

The whole thing was ambiguous, a puzzle to No. 6, Catherine 
Court ; a puzzle to which the attentive reader holds the clue. 

Early in their acquaintanceship her host had put the above 
inquiry on foot. He was still unsatisfied. 

“ Thy position seems singularly forlorn, Susan. Apart from 
this unnatural aunt, hast thou no relative living ? ” 

“ Only my brother Draycott, sir, a servitor at Christ Church 
College, Oxford. Oh yes, I wrote to him three weeks and 
more ago.” 

“ Didst thou post the cover thyself ? ” inquired Hippisley, 
making a note of name and address. 

“ Major Tighe took it to Lombard Street for me, sir,” 
replied the girl, without suspicion that her husband had sup- 
pressed the letter. 

Hippisley nodded over pursed lips. A man of few words, 
who seldom announced his intentions, he wrote to a member 
of his society at Oxford, a watchmaker, and a fortnight later 
was perusing the reply. 


“Aldate’s, Oxford, 

“ 2nd mo. 20, 1779. 

“Respected Friend, Phanuel Hippisley, — 

“ In reply to thine of 2nd Month 12th, I am free to tell 
thee that I have had some personal Acquaintance with the 
young Person in whom thou art interesting thyself, and after 
an Intercourse extending over two and a half Years, know 
nothing of my own Knowledge to his Disparagement. 

“ I gathered from him that he was an Orphan, and although 
in a menial Position in his College, Christ Church (so-called). 


No. 6, CATHERINE COURT 


195 


he always impressed me both by his Conversation and Be- 
haviour as of genteel Upbringing. He was studious beyond 
most of the Youth here, and was so from his first coming up, 
which is unusual among them, for such of them as read at all 
are wont to delay their Reading until their last Year. My 
young Friend, for so I must still call him, did not fall into 
this idle Habit, but cultivated the Society of Books rather than 
of Men, and of Students and ingenious Persons rather than 
of People of consideration, and was in a fair Way to have 
taken a good Degree, when certain regrettable Occurrences 
(of which I have no particular Knowledge) made it needful 
for him to take his Name off the Books of his College. 

“ I believe him to have been hardly used, and whilst repro- 
bating the Haste and Violence which he is reported to have 
displayed, can measurably feel for him. 

* ‘ Of his present Address I am ignorant, nor should I feel free 
to disclose it, having his Welfare at Heart. 

‘ ‘ I think it due to his Credit to tell thee that a small Loan 
which he contracted upon the Eve of his Leaving, has within 
the past Week been repaid, notwithstanding that no Time 
had been set for Repayment, my young Friend making no 
Secret of his Destitution and want of Prospects when accepting 
the Accommodation. 

“ I remain, 

“ Thy Friend Sincerely, 

“ Samuel Prosser. 

“ To Phanuel Hippisley, 

“Number 6, Catherine Court, 

“Tower Hill, London.” 

The recipient of the above letter read, folded, docketed 
and laid it aside without remark. This was the sort of news 
which was almost worse than none. To an absconding 
husband was now to be added an unsatisfactory, or at least 
an unproducible brother ; a young person who, from what- 
ever cause, had forfeited the benefits of his college course, and 
was a fugitive from justice. 

Yet it pleased the old gentleman to find his judgement 
verified, for it had seemed to him from the first that this 
graceful, soft-spoken young woman, the prottgee of his lodger’s 
lodger, was come of good stock. 

This guest had won her way to the hearts of her enter- 
tainers. With the Tuttys she had been Susan from the first, 
but Furley had yet to come to an understanding with himself 
as to her proper style. Some consciousness of a higher social 
grade checked the easy flow of his colloquial goodwill. Nor 
was his tongue as yet perfect in the plain language of the sect 


196 HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 

of his adoption, and, with all the desire in the world to con- 
form, and with all the newborn zeal of a proselyte, the good 
soul made strange work of the girl’s name. “ Susan Tighe, 
ma’am,” or “ Miss Susan, my dear,” were common form, 
occasionally complicated by “ Miss Susan, ma’am,” and other 
combinations, “ Ma’am, my gal,” and even “ Sue, my pretty,” 
and so forth, followed by hasty corrections when consciousness 
supervened, and relapses upon which the girl smiled as she 
smiled upon all her hosts, for “ the dearest and kindest crea- 
tures in the world.” 

Susan smiled ! She had begun to smile again. God had 
given her a great heart and a springing courage. It was her 
nature to be happy and to see to it that those around her 
should share in her happiness. She smiled, and a gleam of 
sunshine crossed the dingiest room upon the dullest day, and 
the hearts of her housemates rejoiced. 

Youth had come to dwell with them for a season. It might 
have been fifty years since young feet had tripped up and 
down that dark stair. Sue’s presence awoke old memories, 
filled their bosoms with pleasant tremors, startled, delighted, 
and refreshed them. The girl was so gentle, so handy, so 
grateful, so clever. Jemima Tutty’s sight had been failing 
of late, her master’s linen was not what it had been. Men 
see nothing ; but critical, middle-aged Quaker spinsters ob- 
served, pitied, and remarked. But now, since February was 
out, they perceived that these deficiencies had been remedied. 
A new needle, swift and competent, was at work. The re- 
cipient of these daily mercies was less perceptive ; another 
month must pass ere he, so rapid and accurate at figures, 
was to put two and two together and make — Susan ! 





To such of us as are comfortably planted in pairs the bachelor 
withering slowly in his lonely pot is a natural object for 
pity. 

The (assumed) dreariness of his evenings appeals to us as 
peculiarly melancholy ; we cannot conceive of compensations, 
nor does it occur to us that he may have pursuits of which he 
is disinclined to speak to the unsympathetic. Why should 
your single man have pursuits at all ? For whose benefit 
does he pursue anything ? He, without wife to call in to 
rejoice with him over his successes, or children to whom to 
pass on his collections ? 

Which is absurd. 

Phanuel Hippisley, for instance, had a darling hobby which 
he had bestridden almost from his childhood. At a tender 
age the curiosity of the boy had been aroused by finding strips 
of undecipherable vellum in the inner bindings of old books, 
and whilst his schoolfellows, after the manner of boys, were 
achieving great and permanent effects with hoops, marbles, 
and tops, he was wasting his time in puzzling out long-extinct 
scripts. The craze grew upon him ; throughout a longish 
life he had begged, or bought every scrap of antique parch- 
ment that crossed his path, and was long since, albeit he knew 
it not, one of the first of living palaeographers. 

The man could have told you at a glance (as a matter of 
fact, he was not particularly communicative) the age of a 
mediaeval document. “This is apiece of pre-Conquest work,” 
he would say, “ and this Plantagenet ; and this, by its poor 
penmanship, will be subsequent to the Black Death.” More- 
over, as a collector should, he not only recognised a good thing 
when he had it in his hand, but knew what to look for, and 
where it was likely to be found. He neither expected nor 
desired great things, six inches by two were enough for him 
as a rule. 

For the centuries differ in their ways of doing things. We 



HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


198 

of the twentieth are diffuse, or inclining thereto. I, myself, 
for example (a humble instance, but the first that comes to 
hand), propose to run to 400 pages. I could not turn myself 
round in fewer, whilst in a really important matter, calling 
for the use of parchment, a popular auditor of a Board of 
Guardians, shall we say, if he have pulled the strings dis- 
creetly, may look to be illuminatively addressed upon his 
retirement from office on six to ten quartos of 9 by 5 vellum, 
the initial page a compliment gloriously embellished, those 
following thick with signatures, gratefully commemorative of 
his genial laxity, the whole Grolier-bound and suitably cased. 

Other times, other manners. In the eighth century an 
East Anglian king, taking thought for the health of his soul, 
would grant five manors to a certain Pandulphus, abbas of 
some house long since secularised, to have and to hold, and 
all this and more, mind you, upon a thin scrap of waxy stuff 
not one third the area of that half -sheet of notepaper which 
a modern prime minister has said is sufficient to contain the 
statement of his views, so transparently plain are those views, 
so obvious to all men. 

But Hippisley had got past charters, toys he held them ; 
they had amused his callow youth and he had put away 
childish things. For thirty years past he had been digging 
at manor-rolls and convent books of account, not for their 
obvious contents — the day of Thorold Rogers was still afar — 
but for the decipherment of the occasional, cloudy, half- 
obliterated characters which crossed and underlay the bold, 
clear, monastic Latin, a script of an earlier day, and Greek, 
may it please you. 

Fifteen lines of an unpublished ode of Pindar had rewarded 
his search, certain fragments of Sappho, and, what he valued 
more, three sections of an unknown gospel, heretical doubtless, 
for he detected gnostic tendencies, but a find worth living 
for all the same. 

This sort of thing pursued by candle-light is hard upon 
the eyes, and it fell upon a certain evening that Friend Phanuel 
found himself in need of a stronger lens than the one in hand, 
and crossed the landing to his chamber to fetch it. 

Rubbing his eyes, he went, and muttering a Greek text to 
himself, walking by the sense of locality rather than by sight, 
and thus, or ever he was aware, ran full up against some one 
who was already in the room, Susan Tighe, in short, with 
her back to the door, humming to herself, her arm to the 
elbow in one of her host’s stockings, her fingers working at 
the inside heel, where she suspected a hole. 

The girl turned with a start, the low lulling tune without 
words died upon her lips ; its presence was automatic. She was 


THE INEVITABLE 


199 


aware that music was interdicted in that Quaker household, 
but what was within her welled forth at times unbidden and 
without her knowledge. 

“ Oh, Mr. Hippisley, sir ! ” she exclaimed, dropping into 
the address of her earlier use (’twould have been “ Phanuel 
Hippisley,” had she taken a moment’s thought). “ What 
can I do for you ? ” 

“Nay, what art thou doing for me ? — not this ? ” 

“ Indeed, but I am ; they are all in holes, those that are not 
working thin. I must run some at the heel and darn the 
worst.” 

“ I don’t know that I quite ” He checked himself. 

“ Wilt thou oblige me by putting them down for one minute 
and coming to my sitting-room ? ” His immediate object 
was forgotten ; a novel and urgent need for an understanding 
was upon him. “ Come with me,” and Susan, meekly wonder- 
ing, came. 

Her master and host returned to his room and to his chair, 
but stood with his hands upon its back ; had it been Jemima 
whom he had called to confer with him he would have sate 
without scruple. There must have been some indescribable 
aura of race in the poise of the bright young head and the 
carriage of the figure which kept the man upon his feet. 
Yet she seemed the simplest of creatures : her hands folded 
before her, one still within the stocking, a small finger-tip 
peeping through a new-found aperture ; so helpful, so feminine. 
Ah, it sent a novel pang to the heart of the old man to see her 
thus ; he bent his brows upon her, moistening his lips, and 
spoke. 

“ Thou art really leaving us, Susan Tighe ? ” 

The girl’s eyes shone in the candle-light : ’twas of her voyage 
that she had been singing, although she was unaware of it. 
There are children and women to whom music is the natural 
expression of their well-being ; are they happy ? they sing — 
anything, nothing reproducible, wordless airs, unconscious 
impromptus, heart and throat in happy co-operation whilst 
eye and hand carry forward the business of life. So Sue. 

“ Yes, indeed, I am going, sir — Phanuel Hippisley, I would 
say — if thou and Thomas Furley will so favour me,” she 
smiled. 

“ ’Tis a long voyage and a great uncertainty, Susan. The 
man whom thou believest to be thy husband has thrown thee 
upon the world, and has left the country under another name, 
— another name, Susan.” 

“ He must have had his reasons, sir.” 

“I do not doubt it. But the ceremony — that marriage 
ceremony — was, I grieve to tell thee, almost certainly illegal. 


200 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 

Yes, there is no such clerk in orders as this Octavius Baskett, 
none that can be traced, Susan.” 

“ But, sir, your Friends are married without a parson, as 
I hear ” 

“ True enough, Susan, but we are under an especial Act, 
and thou art not One of Us ; nor, if thou hadst been, couldst 
thou have been married by night, nor outside the walls of one 
of our Meeting-houses. No, my young friend, ’tis a sad 
business. I deplore it. But thou wilt hardly mend matters 
by following abroad the man who has wronged thee.” 

“ Sir ! — I am his wife in the sight of God ! I pray you not 
to say a word against my husband. I could not bear it, 
indeed I could not.” Her throat worked, her lovely eyes 
filled, but she would not let herself give way. “Ye mean it 
kindly, oh, I know ! — but — I must find him. . . . You believe 
in the Bible ? . . . That text which Friend Hanbury revived 
last Sund — First Day, ‘ If two of you shall agree upon earth 
as touching anything that ye shall ask, it shall he done for you of 
My Father .’ You believe that, dear Mr. Hippisley ? ” 

“ All Holy Scripture is true,” he replied guardedly. 

“ Then, oh, will you join with me ; will you make one of the 
two ? We will pray God daily that I may find him.” 

*■ Thou sh'alt have thy way,” said Hippisley after a pause, 
commanding his voice. The girl thought him vexed, but it 
was not vexation. Only the Recording Angel knew what the 
man withheld and the bliss he renounced in those moments 
of silence. 

“ But understand this, that according to my will and 
judgement this house is thy home. If — if — worse should 
befall thee abroad than thy hopes, my ship is ever at thy 
seivice ; my friend Furley will help thee to the extent of his 
powers. Come hack to us, Susan.” 

There was a sudden vibrant quality in the voice ; its 
measured restraint was leaving it ; the speaker checked himself, 
and but just in time. The girl understood nothing but that 
her host’s already unbounded kindness had travelled beyond 
her needs, and was by way of making provision for a future 
contingency which she resolutely refused to face. 

“ Oh, Mr. Hippisley, you have been more than a father to 
me — what can I say ? Never, never shall I forget you ! 
Why — why are you all so good to me ? ” 

Alas, poor Mr. Hippisley ! The discovery of his guest’s 
ministrations in the matter of stockings and underwear had 
come over him with a sort of clap, causing mental and spiritual 
disturbance. That Jemima should have the handling of his 
linen was in the course of nature, but that this light-limbed, 
graceful young stranger should so much as touch a garment 


THE INEVITABLE 


201 


of his was another matter. It alarmed his bachelorhood, it 
smacked of indelicacy (not that he blamed — he pitied her), 
it disturbed his imagination, tormented his waking thoughts 
and got itself mixed up with his dreams. 

Being painfully conscious of the absurdity and unreason of 
his objections, he found himself unable to urge them. Nor 
was there a soul in whom he could confide, nor any of whom 
he could ask advice. This novel and poignant sense of pity 
ate and slept with him, it walked and talked with him ; 
never had he felt for a fellow-creature so deeply ; nor so 
earnestly and so helplessly desired to help. 

The poor soul was wholly unaware of what ailed him, and 
the knowledge of the nature of his complaint when it did 
Gome came from an unexpected quarter. 

The great and notable storm which had ushered in the year 
had been followed by that memorable frost. For fourscore 
days the weather held ; the ice in the lower Thames was a 
wonder, and every street was foul with ancient snow ; but 
throughout it all, this hale old man’s daily constitutional had 
consisted of a few brisk turns along Tower Wharf from Lion 
Gate to East Gate and back. He thought that the easterly 
winds from off the Essex marshes tasted more freshly there 
than after their contamination by the smokes of the City. 

To him, pacing, closely buttoned, a weight of commiseration 
upon his clean old heart, comes me the rector of St. Olave’s, 
also constitutionalising, and blocks his Quaker neighbour’s 
path with a forefinger directed at his gastric region. 

“ Too bad, Mr. Hippisley ! — too bad ! I gave ye fair 
warning, but got no help from ye after all. But for the 
chance of my seeing the lady’s name upon the sea-chest, 
which those rascally bums were carrying off along with your 
easy chair, as I took it to be (a mere chance, in John Street 
it was), I should have been put to a pretty penny to buy the 
things in for ye. What rogues some tradesmen are, to be 
sure ! My plain directions set at nought. They had found 
the money, but had seized the extra things ‘ to be on the right 
side.’ Too bad.” 

“It is gratifying to find thee seeing the business in its 
true light. My chair was a small matter. I have others. 
But I thank thee. The chest was another story. It is, as 
1 may say, not my property. In any case its loss would have 
distressed — a — would have upset plans, delayed arrangements. 
She leaves us next week ! ” 

The last words broke from the speaker under his breath ; 
the tone of them was sorrow’s self. 

The rector was startled, but made some indifferent remark, 
deciding that he had misheard, or misunderstood, and that, 


202 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


at any rate, the matter was none of his business. He resolved 
to forget it, and plunged into the topic which lay close to his 
heart. 

“As to that last chapter in Ignatius to the Smyrnceans , 
Hippisley, after consulting the authorities I think I am 

justified in saying they are against you, Lowth, now ” 

“ A fair Hebraist, my friend, but as a patrist I put him 
second to thyself.” 

The rector bowed. “ But, apart from the bishop, -what 
make you of the Lambeth uncial ? Once Laud’s, they say ? 
It has the final chapter which ye throw doubt upon. Whilst 
as for the construction which ye contend is late, I have an 
instance for ye in Polycarp. Besides, as I now remember, 

Grynaeus in his Ortho do xographa ” 

{Get thee to thy skipping-rope, good reader. Nay, I too 
will e'en join thee, for the rector grows over-erudite .) 

“ So, as I was saying,” recapitulated the worthy soul, after 
five polemical minutes, “ But, I beg your pardon ! ” 

For his auditor had muttered : “ Oh, dear, next week ! ” 

The bold wind which had compelled the clergyman to shout 
his argument in breathless instalments had at the moment 
fallen quiet, and in the lull he caught the above disconcerting 
irrelevancy from his companion, whose attention he had 
imagined he was engrossing. As a gentleman Mr. Tomlyn 
was disposed to be courteously deaf to a remark which had no 
connection with his subject, and which was of the nature of an 
unconscious self -revelation. He paced a few steps in silence, 
mastering, as he hoped, every evidence of his surprise, but 
inwardly concerned for his friend. 

His friend, however, was not to be outdone in politeness. 

“ I must ask thy excuse ... it seems I was not giving thy 
argument just the attention ... in fact . . . was thinking 
. . . much to trouble me of late.” 

Sad was the voice, sad and low again : there was no mis- 
taking that note, the unconscious cry for help. Ignatius and 
Polycarp vanished ; here, at the rector’s elbow, stood a fellow- 
creature in need. The men turned as if moved by a common 
impulse, and retracing their steps to the East Gate came to 
a stand in a corner out of the wind. Tomlyn was thinking 
fast and hard. This amazing old fellow, was it possible ? 
and after such a life ! Something he knew of that life, its silent, 
underhanded kindnesses in his parish; but most of its dry, 
bleak, upland pastures were strange country to him. A 
bachelor himself, he could sympathise with a brother celibate 
and yet be almost incapable of conceiving an existence such 
as Hippisley ’s outside monastery walls. Woman had had no 
part in it. A^sisterless lad, without girl cousins, little Phanuel 


THE INEVITABLE 


203 


had grown up in an Eveless Eden, drab, quiet, and narrow, 
nor had ever tasted of the Tree of Knowledge. There had 
been no skippings and kissings, blameless or otherwise, in 
his life, no sportive interludes provoked by mischievous blue 
eyes and rosy beckoning fingers. And now, all unaware, 
this gentle, kindly, pure old heart had taken a wound. 

“ Dear God ! What an awful thing ! This innocent, 
like some hermit of the woods, in sheer compassion, has lifted 
a witch over his threshold out of the storm and night. ’Twill 
kill him. ... Is it possible that I can help ? ” 

Now consider, I beseech you, the relations of these two 
old men. For the first fifteen years of their acquaintanceship 
they had regarded one another as the orthodox practitioner 
regards the homoeopath, and as the Moderator of the Wee 
Frees regards the Scottish Primus. For five years a common 
interest and a growing appreciation of one another’s scholar- 
ship had been drawing them together. Were their true selves 
ever to be revealed, their souls to touch ? 

Something must be risked : in fact, ’twas a big risk, the 
soldering or the severing of an irreplaceable friendship, no 
less. Tomlyn accepted that risk. 

“ Mr. Hippisley ? ” 

“ My friend ? ” 

How goes this with you ? ” 

•“ But poorly, my friend.” 

The parson closed his eyes, shooting a prayer heavenward 
as he plunged. The other saw, understood, and submitted. 
Had a deputation of the Overseers of his Monthly Meeting 
come a-visiting him upon his conduct and intentions towards 
Susan, they, the accredited censors of his sect, would have 
j found him marble. But this was an angel -guarded moment. 
“Tell me all about it ; yes, about her ? ” 

Hippisley groaned. A tear trickled down the withered old 
nose and hung from its frosted tip. It might have been the 
wind, but a spring north-easter does not loosen the mouth, 
thought Tomlyn. “ What ! can it be as bad as this ? ” 

Then Hippisley groaned again, and a hand went falteringly 
out and was taken. The impacted ice about the strong heart 
was breaking. This man, a stranger to close and equal 
human sympathy since his mother had kissed him and died so 
many years ago, was dumbly feeling for comfort in his trouble. 
Good God ! what was coming ? The rector braced himself 
to hear and to bear one more tragedy. The wind piped 
lamentably. A hungry lion roared in the Moat. 

Yet it was no more than what he knew already, amplified 
a little, the pathetic story of desertion and poverty and the 
unrequited love of an injured woman’s faithful heart. 


204 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


“ She doesn’t even know for certain that the man is there. 
She has no hold upon him, no scrap of his handwriting. He 
may, nay, almost certainly will deny her if she ever finds him ; 
and what then is to become of her ? I have reasoned, repre- 
sented : her one reply to it all is that the man is her husband. 
Now, we know what we know. And she leaves us next week 
— next week ! ” 

And this was all — positively all ! The man was unconscious 
of his self-revelation. 

“ It has taken hold of you strangely, my friend. Your 
health ? ” 

“ Indeed yes. I take no joy in anything. My food tastes 
less to my mind . . . dry. I sleep brokenly. . . . And, what 
is new to me, my powers of concentration, of attention (as 
thou hast just seen, and as I grieve to think thou shouldst 
have had occasion to see), are weakening. I am elderly, but 
not so old. It cannot be that ? ” 

“ No, I do not for a moment believe it is. You and I, my 
friend, are regular livers : we have expectation of health for 
years to come ; with reasonable care, you know. . . . But 
you must regulate your sympathies, or they will run away 
with you.” 

“ Thou thinkest so ? But, who could withhold pity ? The 
child is so helpless ! So . . . young.” The man was still but 
half awake, yet, seeing himself shimmeringly reflected in 
Tomlyn’s eyes, as a sleep-walker might see himself in a glass, 
he stopped to consider the phenomenon. 

“ Have ye confided to the lady the way in which her — dis- 
tresses and her — presence — er — affect ye, Mr. Hippisley ? ” 

“ No, oh no ! It would only add to her trouble. But, 
indeed, I had a half-formed purpose of accompanying her.” 

“ Nay, Hippisley, ye must not do that. I mean, I could 
not advise it.” 

“ Eh ? How so ? Why ? ” The somnambulist was rubbing 
his eyes and was now nearly awakened, the figure of himself 
in the mirror was still puzzling him, but was so recognisably 
himself that his position and divagations would presently be 
obvious to him. 

“ For the lady’s sake, Hippisley, and your own peace of 
mind.” 

“ Thou dost not mean to say. But I never thought. . . . 
It surely cannot . . . ? Impossible ! Oh no, really ! ” Yet a 
heart-shaken conviction of the possibility of this very thing 
that he deprecated was oppressing his consciousness. His 
eyes opened widely for a moment and then closed tightly : 
the lips were indrawn and held, the nostrils quivered. Alas 
for the sleeper ! his eager heart full of sweet compassions, he 


THE INEVITABLE 


205 


is pursuing some dimly realised form through a twilit, silent 
place of green boskage : she flits just out of reach nor turns 
her face : a rosy ear nestles amid dear, dark tendrils, a soft 
cheek, just seen, trembles with some unknown trouble, a tear 
slips down its damask rondure. His tongue is clogged, his 
feet hampered, but his outstretched arms can almost reach her. 
He would protect, defend, uphold — Click ! — a curtain runs up, 
and with dazed, blinking eyes unused to the glare of a new 
and unwelcome day, he finds his vision fled, and himself — 
can it be ? — night-shirted and chilly (oh, the shame-scorch has 
yet to come) paddling bare-footed in the coffee-room amid 
the chairs of booted and coated strangers decorously surprised 
— a somnambulist taken in the act ! 

Reader, dost thou know the sensation of being caught out 
in a Wrong Thing : not merely suspected, but actually 
caught -flagrante delicto, the stolen lollipops in thy very 
mouth, the purloined jam still gumming thy little larcenous 
fingers ? (we will assume that the dereliction was childish and 
long ago). Was this experience ever thine ? Then thou 
at least canst recall the breath-catching, tongue-parching, 
palsying sense of shame which overcomes the culprit thus 
taken, when his, or her, universe seems all eyes before and 
behind, and each family portrait upon the wall turns accusing 
glances upon the misdemeanant. 

Friend Hippisley for one moment felt thus. The dear, 
good soul, who had lived so upright a life, had had no ex- 
perience of the kind since his almost babyhood. To deny, 
to repudiate, hardily to face-down proof was outside his 
character. He accepted this revelation of himself as the 
Message from The Most High, and the messenger as his friend, 
cruel as was the wound to pride dealt by his hand. 

“ As bad as that ? ” muttered the rector, watching this 
visible distress, and as yet unaware of the wholly subjective 
struggles of which it was the outward expression. “ She 
knows, I suppose ? ” 

“ That I pity her ? I cannot say.” 

“ * Pity’ ? Hippisley, this goes beyond pity; ’tis ” 

“ No, surely ! What art thou saying ? Yet, I do not 
know, for I never ” 

** No ? What, ye have never ? Sir, ’tis amazing, but I 
take your word for it; but ye are in for it now. Trust me, 
we see some life, we parsons, and I too, alack — and all ! am 
just a man ” — a long shuddering sigh, which might partly 
have been the cold wind, which both had forgotten : it had 
worked round to them in their shelter. “Ye are not alone 
in this, my friend, by any means. And now, how stands it 
with ye ? * 


206 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


“• Oh, what shall I say ? 11 

“ As little, or as much as ye will. I, too, remember ” 

So out it came, the pitifullest stuff, and surely the most 
innocent of any story of human passion. He had learned to 
listen for the closing and opening of the attic door. . . . 
Could tell her foot upon the floors overhead and upon the 
stair. Her voice raised in some brief snatch of song below 
at the wash-tub caught his breath, tugged at his heart-strings. 
No more ! It had begun, he verily believed, with the child 
darning his stockings. 

Tomlyn, pinching a pursed lip, heard and marvelled at any 
human being walking so foul a world with feet so little sullied. 
’Twas the passion of a boy for some beautiful, grave, sorrow- 
stricken lady old enough to have been his mother. As clean, 
as mad, and ten times as dangerous. 

Yes, dangerous. The patient had got a name for his com- 
plaint, and was conscious. Nature would be putting in a 
claim to its rights. 

“ It is but for a week — a week ! ” murmured poor Hippisley, 
brokenly. 

“ I must keep them apart for the time as much as may be,” 
thought the rector. “Ye need change of thought, my friend. 
What say ye to accompanying me to Lambeth to see that 
uncial for yourself ? — aye, and they have a hagiography there, 
an ordinary Acts of St. Thomas of Canterbury in fourteenth- 
century script, with something beneath which seems to me 
worth attention. Shall I call for ye this afternoon ? ” 

“ Friend Tomlyn, thou hast been very good to me ; hast 
helped me,” said the other, thinking his own thoughts still. 
“ I am somewhat shaken in myself and would know where 
I stand. Tell me, as man to man ; thinkest thou that the 
Almighty condemns me in this ? ” 

“ In that ye began like a Samaritan and have ended as a 
man ? Indeed I do think nothing of the sort of Him. Neither 
do I condemn ye, Hippisley : go in peace. And may God 
Almighty pardon us both.” 

They had stood long enough in the wind for both of them 
to have taken colds which neither could account for later, and 
parted in much friendship, staunch Protestants both, and 
equally unaware that they had participated in auricular 
confession, and that one had pronounced and the other 
accepted absolution. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE SEVERING STRAND 

The ice below bridge was loosening fast now, and Furley was 
nigh ready for sea. 

During the ten days which yet remained to him, Hippisley, 
who had hitherto in his heart of hearts refused to believe in 
his young guest’s departure, accepted the event, and bent 
himself to make that departure as pleasant to her as he 
might. 

He saw but little of her, nor ever trusted himself alone in 
her company ; but of her comfort during the voyage, and of 
her welfare and safety at the end of it, and of her possible 
return, he thought both by night and by day. 

“ This crew of thine, Thomas ? ” 

“ A passable, stiddy lot, seemin’ ly, Phanuel Hippisley, sir, 
all on ’em being Members of the Society of Friends, saving 
the cook, who be a professor of all religions, ; nd the boy, what 
have none. But I lives in hopes of basting a little of the 
right sort into him atween Gravesend and Europa Point, 
God willing.” 

“ And thou hast confidence in this mate of thine — I know 
nothing of him — Zabulon Sweetapple ? ” 

“ Useful, just useful ; I reckons we can dew with him. I 
knawn him years back. He’ve some navigation about him, 
which is apt to come in handy on the high seas. Likewise 
some skill in physic and yarbs (I b’lieves in yarb-tea, myself). 
Then, he’s a perfessed bone-setter, and there’s sense in that 

aboardship ; for I’ve sin myself ” Furley related a 

gruesome experience of injuries and home-spun First Aid : 
“ But he sorter died, all the same,” he concluded, “ so this 
here Anointer-man might chance upon a job this v’yage, 
please God. He bain’t azackly One of Us, as you might 
say, but talks Scripture surprisin’.” 

“ I should like to make the man’s acquaintance.” 

“ Thee’ll not do it to-day, I’m thinking, for he be off on 

207 


208 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


a job of his own. Comes to me day afore yesterday and 
arsts me to spare him till to-night as is — seemed to make- 
out as ’twas the eend of the Age, and Mile-Endium was over- 
due, and that he must be there.” 

“ Where ? ” asked Hippisley with interest. 

“ Mile End, to be sure. He’d figured it out proper ; showed 
me sech a string o’ figures and kalkilations as nigh turned me 
half silly. His Lord was a-coming and he must be on the 
spot for to meet Him in the air and what not. ‘ Are you 
often took so ? ’ sez I. ‘ Never at sea,’ sez he. ‘ That’s 
lucky,’ sez I, ‘ and we’ll consider ourselves at sea now.’ 
* But we ain’t east o’ Gravesend yet,’ sez he, and made out 
as he’d prewved his kalkilations this time so as they was 
bound to come right. Now there’s no answerin’ a chap like 
that in port, so I gives ’um the tew days orf. . . . Hullo, 
why here a-be, back afore his time ! ” 

A big, blue-coated man in breeches and cocked hat was 
coming over the side ; his buckled shoes and brass buttons 
gave him a more commanderish appearance than did the 
frock to which Furley, in his Quaker zeal for simplicity, still 
adhered since his promotion to the poop. “ Come aboard, 
sir,” growled the newcomer surlily, and was going below to 
change when his skipper stayed him. 

“ Here’s thy owner, Zabulon, Phanuel Hip’sl’y, as thee’ve 
heerd me tell about. Friend Hip’sl’y, this here be Zabulon 
Sweetapple, mate o’ thy ship. And oh, by the by, Zabulon, 
how went that job o’ thine at Mile End ? ” 

The mate’s broad red face darkened. “ If there’s one 
thing as s’prises me more’n another, ’tis that some folkses 
can’t mind their own business.’ ’ 

“ And about the young person’s cabin accommodation, 
Thomas ? ” said Hippisley, as the mate ducked under the 
after-deck. 

‘‘ There be four locker-bunks below — one for she, one for 
he, and t’other two for me and my charts. See ? Ah, yah, 
and I’ve stowed them cases o’ stores as thee’ve sent aboard 
for her ; quite a nicetish property — and ” 

“ Not at all. But there is a point I must settle with thee, 
and as well now as any time. Below will be best.” They 
sought the cabin. 

“ I think it probable that Susan Tighe will fail of finding 
her husband at Gibraltar, Thomas, or, finding him, may hear 
her marriage and herself repudiated.” 

“ My view tew,” assented the captain. 

“In which case I desire thee to do thy utmost to bring 
her back to us again.” 

“ Yigh, yigh ; that’s all werry well, Friend Hip’sl’y, but 


THE SEVERING STRAND 209 

what if she refuges for to come ? Gals be gals ; and if so 
be as her man be there, ’tis odds as she’ll stick and chance 
it.” 

“ Poor things, are they so ? ” murmured Hippisley with 
commiseration for the weakness of his sister woman born of 
recent experiences, and a newly gained knowledge of the soft 
places in his own heart. “ Well, Thomas, I must trust to 
thy judgement. Which brings me to this ; say she proves 
deaf to thy persuasion and declines to return, she must not 
be ^ left without means. A little money — she will need it.” 

“ She will that, poor soul ; ’tis the root of all .evil, but a 
gal alone in the world is none the worse for a bit off the end 
of it. ’Tis all the same as liquorice : a suck be a comfort to 
the throat ; tew much be bad for ye.” 

But the owner was untying the complicated knots of a 
small and weighty parcel which he had hitherto entrusted 
| to no handling but his own. “No . . . she must not be 
1 left without means. . . . Here are three hundred pounds, 

! Thomas.” 

'* A sight tew much, friend.” 

“ I differ from thee. Here are three hundred pounds, I 
say, or thereabouts (we will tell it presently), which I place 
in thy hands to leave in hers at parting, if thou hast to part 
with her. 

“ But I hope for better things.” 

As he spoke, the brown oak fixture-table was growing 
: opulent with rows of moidores, demi-moidores, and doubloons 
\ (current coin of the realm an it please you), rolls of Spanish 
| pillar-dollars (pieces of eight), too, upon which the cretinous 
! profile of the Bourbon was partially defaced by the warranty- 
mark of the Bank of England, a superimposed stamp of the 
royal features of King George within an escutcheon. There 
were millions — actual, not rhetorical — of such in circulation, 
the prize-money of Anson’s blue-jackets, the plunder of the 
privateers, stout Woodes Rogers and others. When a tall 
galleon struck, or a town was held to ransom, the victors made 
haste to divide the specie. By rights, no doubt, the cases 
should have gone to a prize-court for adjudication, and the 
i bullion to the royal mint — then within the walls of the Tower 
: of London — but such were the peculations and delays of these 
departments that a wise man troubled them as little as might 
be, and this demimonde coinage, bearing the superscriptions 
of the Bank, or of some well-known firm, passed freely, not 
legal tender, maybe, but customary, and for foreign trade 
1 as good as any. 

' Furley squared his elbows and knit his bushy brows for 
' the telling ; the owner peeped half shyly into the little dark 

14 


210 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


locker-bunk reserved for the lady, and for the first time 
realised the tightness and closeness of sea-quarters. 

“ Will she have room enough here, thinkest thou, Thomas ? ” 

‘‘Forty-five, forty-six. ‘ Room enow?’ Why, sartinly 
she will — there be room enow for me . . . Forty-seven — hi ! 
a dud crown here ! ” He had driven a strong yellow dog- 
tooth through the layer of silver covering a base-metal core. 
There were many such fabrications afloat, for no jury would 
hang a man for forging the image and superscription of a 
Most Catholic Majesty with whom Protestant King George 
was -at loggerheads. 

“ Bad, is it ? Tut, tut, and has been stamped by the City 
itself. Very careless ; but 111 exchange with thee.” He 
drew another from his fob and tossed the other through the 
stern window. “ I wish,” said he, “ I wish she may be 
comfortable — I somehow cannot think it.” 

And the day dawned, the inevitable day. Susan, loaded 
with more than she could possibly require, was embraced by 
the weeping Jemima at the Tower stairs ; Jasper, the broad, 
snuffy lip none too steady, hovering in the background, a 
sorrowful little figure of mute sympathy. The rector was 
there too, having met the party on Tower Hill by — accident. 
He would dissuade his old friend from going down river in 
the wherry, or accompany him if persuasions failed. There 
should be no weakness at the last. 

Together they saw the child on board ; saw too the brig’s 
head-sails fill, and watched her take the ebb and fade away 
down the reach on her way to Sheerness, whence a strong escort 
would guard the East Coast convoy as far as its rendezvous 
at Falmouth. 

And the wherry with the two old men in its stern-sheets 
came slowly up-river again, against wind and tide ; slowly 
and very sorrowfully, for light and youth and a sweet young 
spirit had passed out of their lives. Susan was gone. 

This is the worst of entertaining angels. The white 
creature folds its wings and deigns to inhabit with us for a 
season, and, because of it, there broods a blessing upon the 
house, and peace is in all our borders. Like Israel of old, 
we have light in our dwelling. The very bow-pots are full 
of bloom, and there is fragrance from attic to basement. 

And then, too soon, we find that our heavenly visitant is 
ours for a visit only, has a life to live elsewhere, and business 
upon those white hands ; and one morning the bed is cold 
and vacant, the lattice wide, and the Bird of God is gone ! 

Possibly Phanuel Hippisley was thinking such thoughts as 
these, whilst the watermen lay to their oars, and the running 


21 1 


THE SEVERING STRAND 

ebb rattled under the wherry’s bows. Gloomy and dull 
would be his rooms in Catherine Court without her, those 
rooms where the blacks settled upon his pillow as he slept, 
and upon the page as he read. He had not noticed them 
before her coming, but now — the blacks seemed falling upon 
his heart. 

His lips moved with soundless fragments of the Alkestis. 
The dim old eyes swam with water that was not due to the 
warm west wind they were meeting. They overlooked the 
wharves and the tiers of shipping and the lighters running 
down with the brown current, but saw only a little face that 
they would see thus and no otherwise until they closed in 
death. 

“Old man’s love, it burneth to the bone.” 

The rector watched his man in a wise silence. 

And, now, are you a- weary of my twin fogeys ? And is 
this the place to drop them out of my story ? The old, as we 
know, must go ; vixerunt — they have lived their lives ; the 
horse is at the door for them. Youth is hot, and impatient, 

; and will be served. 

And yet, and yet, for the life of me I cannot find it in my 
heart to treat the twain as supers and mere upholstery. They 
were so very real to themselves (and to the God who made 
them). Even the elderly and the unpicturesque have their 
rights, and with your leave, or without it, I will round off 
my friends’ stories as well as I may, and those who want to 
be skipping shall betake them to their ropes and be welcome. 

; It shall not run to more than a page. 

For, look you, the Rev. Eustace Tomlyn came out well, and 
it behoves to tell how that he, minded to provide a dis- 
traction for the brooding heart of his friend, besought his 
judgement upon a certain MS. in the library of Lambeth 
Palace, and got it. Also how this MS. grew to be MSS. and 
a widening circle of interest. Item, how the twain got access 
■ to a certain neglected muniment chamber heaped with the 
fusty illegibility of the southern Province, “ difficult to read, 
impossible to understand, and disgusting to handle,” yellow 
bundles of returns, the dust thick upon their greasy upper 
surfaces, but fair and creamy within. It was here that 
Hippisley descried those faint gray lines of half-erased Greek 
cursive crossing and underlying the dog Latin of some long- 
dead archdeacon, a trouvaille clean overlooked by generations 
ji of snuffy, non-resident, sinecure librarians, whose existence, 
like Porson’s in similar circumstances, could be inferred from 
their receipts for salary, never by services rendered. Time 


1212 


HARD NUTS AND SOFT KERNELS 


would fail me to tell how this pair of strangely matched yoke- 
fellows spent delightful years at this business, absorbed, 
secretive, glanced at askance by Quakerism upon the one 
hand and orthodoxy upon the other, until their joint Thesaurus 
saw the light, and commentators caught sudden breaths of 
wonder at the two old scholars, who had recovered three lost 
epistles of St. Mile to of Sardis, and an extraordinarily early 
and perfectly spurious Gospel, attributing itself to Thomas 
the Twin, but bewraying the hand of Mar cion. For this and 
more I refer you to the palaeographers. But for the inner 
life of the two you must come to me. By gradual degrees, 
or rather by a series of small plunges, the men found them- 
selves in closer social contact. ’Twas highly unprofessional 
upon both their parts, but what would you ? Upon the 
score of mere convenience, the rector in the middle of a stiff 
piece of exegesis must sup with the dissenter at No. 6 ; whilst 
the Quaker learned his way up the steep staircase of St. 
Olave’s rectory at the west end of the church. (No. 8, Hart 
Street, to-day, and let out as offices, a staircase worth visiting, 
for every baluster and newell is delightfully and quaintly 
twisty. ) 

I would have you then conceive them, deep in this business 
(a curate running the parish, and Jasper Tutty, assisted by a 
promising nephew, husbanding the brigs of the Hippisley 
fleet), wholly and utterly absorbed, collating, deciphering, 
eking out, reading in, recovering, suggesting (oh, the delights 
of it !) cheek by jowl, in perfect amity ; the occasional 
incidence of a church-rate troubling the distraining rector 
much, and the distrained-upon victim not at all, and the 
former sorrowing over the final doom of his unbaptized friend, 
who, for his part, faced the prospect with perfect equanimity. 

And there we may leave them both. God bless them. 
Amen ! 


BOOK V 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


CHAPTER I 

TERTIUM QUID 

I WOULD have you see Falmouth Harbour, not as it lies 
to-day, empty save for a few hulks, and its own quay- 
punts, and, it may be, a rare nitrate barque or a Californian 
four-master with wheat put in for orders, but Falmouth at 
the beginning of its great days, at the oncoming of the epic 
cycle of the French wars, which gave to its land-locked creeks 
their first importance as a western rendezvous for England’s 
outgoing commerce. 

Conjure up Falmouth then, as it was in the early June of 
1779, when the second great Mediterranean convoy of the year, 
a fleet of two hundred sail, lay folded like sheep within the 
green, wooded headlands awaiting a shift of wind, whilst 
butcher-boats and tailor-boats, bread-boats and water-boats 
did good business, and every tradesman between Penrhyn 
and Market-strand, Flushing and St. Mawes was reaping a 
golden harvest. 

Conceive that the soft, warm, overcast, southerly weather, 
which has tied the fleet up for weeks, has backed to a brisk 
northerly breeze, and that the captain of the frigate in charge, 
H.M.S. Paladin, impatient to be gone, lies off the Black 
Rock with his fore-topsail aback, firing signal guns to quicken 
the movements of slow, bluff-bowed, scuppers-awash merchant- 
men, whose masters, more weather-wise than their commodore, 
and confident of the falling of a curtain of channel-fog, are in 
many cases ashore. 

Bang ! bang ! go those blank charges ; Captain Wynyard 
will take no denials ; his ancillary gun-brigs Snorter and 
Hawk are enforcing his orders ; landing-parties of blue. 

[213 


214 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


jackets are patrolling Main Street, their officers push into 
back snuggeries, and old cronies enjoying a parting rummer 
are hectored and sent about their business by little rascal 
middies without a hair upon their chins. The blue peter 
flutters everywhere, the guardship flies more bunting than any 
merchant jack can possibly read unless he shall have at some 
time served his king as yeoman of the signals. Hence there is 
much hasty manning of boats at the Green Bank, takings 
aboard of belated washing, some shedding of tears, too, and 
tender farewells, but more drinkings of healths, especially at 
Pendennis, where the gentlemen of the garrison mess, after 
a wet night of it, according to the custom of their day and 
service, are for giving a tipsy send-off to the officers sailing 
with the reliefs for Gibraltar. 

The anchorage is vocal to the plaintive chanties of labouring 
jacks up-hauling heavy gaffs or getting home their cables 
to the clank of windlass pawls. The tide has turned, the 
ebb begins to carry seaward the floating weed, cables grow 
right ahead, stocks are awash ; over two hundred brigs, snows, 
sloops, and barques are on the move, when, justifying the 
growls of old channel pilots, the sun silvers, the day dims, 
puff after puff of down-driving flock intervenes between 
ship and ship, marks glimmer for a moment or two and go 
out. The sun, but now a ball of glistering silver, just tolerable, 
turns to a plaque of Spanish lustre, then to a disc of ruby, 
then mere copper, whilst the water runs pewter, lead, dross 
of lead. Impalpable whiteness spreads, portending disaster, a 
channel-fog has fallen upon the convoy in narrow waters, 
whilst the one half has hardly gotten steerage-way upon it, 
and the other is still getting its anchors. 

Too late, the commodore saw his mistake, no signals would 
avail him ; his too peremptory orders had been obeyed, or 
would be obeyed, for no weak-handed merchantman wants 
to be the laggard of his convoy, the lame duck, hull-down to 
windward, that is plucked by the Cherbourg chasse-maree. 
Dangerous was the huddle of unhandy craft in the gut of 
the harbour mouth, nor was it so safe farther up, where the 
Mary of Yarmouth lay still at her moorings off St. Mawes 
hard, well inshore, but not so wholly out of the fairway that 
a half-drunk master who had lost his marks might not find 
her. 

So thought Mr. Sweetapple and looked his question. The 
skipper nodded and walked aft to his station. “ Man the wind- 
lass ! ” said the mate, taking the forecastle. 

Susan from the poop heard the unmelodious grunting of 
the hands timing their efforts to the accented words of a jauntv 
old refrain, 


TERTIUM QUID 215 

Oh, don't ye sneer at a sailor-lad though his /or-tune may be low. 

For all my fancy dwells on Nancy, and I’ll sing yo, heave yo, 
My lads, and I'll sing yo, heave, yo l " 

Mr. Sweetapple rolled it out in a rich, rough, gravy-beef 
voice : his Quaker jacks joined in at the salient points with 
perfunctory, shamefaced groans, as though resenting the 
omission of William Penn, a voluminous author, and himself 
the son of an admiral, to provide suitable chanties for the 
needs of his seafaring followers. 

“ This here ain't Gracious Street, Susan, ma’am ; and, 
arter all, there beent no sin in it,” was the master’s excuse for 
his company’s unquakerly dereliction. 

A minute or two later he had weightier matters for thought, 
his “ departure ” to wit, as the seaman calls his last sight 
of land, and with corrugated brows took silent note of his 
exact position and fell again, as his headsails filled and drew, 
to exploring the fog which drove down harbour with him, 
conceding him capricious glimpses of other craft. Drab 
silhouettes of shipping loomed up out of its bosom from 
King Harry Passage and Penrhyn Roads and passed from sight 
again. But not from hearing ; there, broad upon his star- 
board bow, some vigorous hailing was going on and not a 
little swearing, which a dull, pounding crash explained if it 
failed to justify. A transport brig, under a master new to 
these waters, had fallen athwart the hawse of a little snow 
running free ; both jib-booms had gone, both foretop-masts 
had followed, and the craft, still foul, had taken ground under 
Pendennis. The fog which had wrought the mischief thinned 
for a moment as though to show its handiwork, and then closed 
gauzy curtains around the strands. 

“ What ships be they ? ” asked the master. The helmsman 
did not know, and Mr. Sweetapple, who did, was forward by 
the knightheads, invisible but audible, for an anxious man 
was Mr. Sweetapple that tide, no longer the choregos of an 
untuneful watch, but bull-voiced, remonstrant, minatory, yea, 
profane. 

“ Keep her away ! Port, sir, for the love o' Gawd ! ” The 
channel was narrowish for this sort of thing, especially with 
a following crowd of invisible craft. “ Back-water, you fool 
row-boat, there ; d’ye want to be run down ? Yes — no — 
take yer ch’ice and go to the devil ! ” (This in response to 
questions from the water, some crabber in fear for his pots, 
as Furley opined.) Then the mate, still bawling injurious 
observations at some nameless offender against the courtesies 
of navigation, a block of darker fog, itself unpleasantly vocal, 
suddenly grew shrill. “ Let her come up a hit ! Ahoy, there ! 


216 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 

Where the mischief ? ” Furley flung his weight upon the 

tiller-tackle— too late ; a second block of grayness, swiftly 
growing in definition, loomed up, delivering broadsides of 
expletives, and was aboard him before the Mary had obeyed 
her helm. Followed a long, shuddering, grinding impact; 
strange, angry voices mingled with the crackling of the faggot- 
fenders which Furley had providently hung overside ; strange 
red faces, open-mouthed and vociferous, peered from the 
fog alongside. Everything was let go, and the two little 
vessels, luckily under easy canvas, lay for a minute in most 
unaffectionate contact, both their companies hard at it with 
sweep-heads and spare booms to pole them clear. 

It was during the warmth of this business that a singular 
thing befell ; for now, whilst the master and all hands, save 
the impassive helmsman, were noisily busy, came again that 
hail from the water astern, and then the thump of a shipped 
oar and two voices in converse beneath the brig’s counter. 

“ ’Tis the gentleman’s ship, sure enough, I tell ’ee ; the 
M, A, R, Y— Aw, yess ” 

“ But ” 

“ Tell’ee ’tis, then ; what else ? You’m a fule as can’t read. 
D’ee think to teach me — you, as can’t tell a cockstag from 
a mebbish ? Now, captain, show a leg and lay hold o’ some- 
thing ! ” 

And with that, and some scraping alongside, a shoreboat 
was hooked on to the port main-channels whilst a tall fellow, 
heavily cloaked in the military mode, silent, deliberate, and 
clumsy, got himself over the gunwale into the ship’s waist. 
The visitor passed a hand across his face, stared about him 
but said never a word, then felt in his fob, and, lurching to 
the ship’s rail, leaned over, rating his boatmen for thieves. 
They, without replying, expeditiously cast off, thrust astern, 
and were gone, swallowed up bodily by the fog. No sailors 
these, but harbour crimps turned longshoremen for the occa- 
sion ; rogues in grain, and at home, by their Cornish speech. 

Their fare and dupe patted an empty fob, swearing softly 
as a man talks in his sleep. He had a thick tongue. Sue 
from her station upon the poop could see the upper part of 
his figure. He seemed both young and out of sorts, and had a 
lost air. She disliked and yet pitied him. Presently, recog- 
ing that his purse was gone, and that he was wasting his time, 
he turned from the gunwale and made his way aft with dull, 
fixed eyes that disregarded the labouring backs of the watch 
upon the other side of the main-hatch. 

‘‘Tonal, Tonal, I say ; come here, ye donnert fule ! Noo, 
where the teffle iss Tonal ? ” At this point he raised his eyes 
and found himself face to face with Sue. “ A leddy on board ; 


TERTIUM QUID 217 

I am tamned ! ” he whispered ; then aloud, “ Ma’am, yer 
pairdon’s begged. . . . Hae ye sin ma batman ? ” 

It was at this juncture, and before Susan could ask the 
stranger what he meant or required, that the consenting 
efforts of two ships’ companies had got their vessels clear, and 
the brig fell away before the wind. The changed motion 
must have affected the young gentleman’s equilibrium, for 
he staggered, buckling at the knees, made a snatch at the 
lady’s outstretched hand, and with its assistance took a seat 
upon the deck with the solemnity and deliberation of the 
Lord Chancellor taking the woolsack. 

“ Who are you ? What is the matter with him ? Do I 
know you, sir ? ” asked the startled girl, fast by her finger- 
tips, and puzzled as well by the helpless absurdity of the 
youth’s position as by a certain elusive familiarity in his 
features. 

“ C-C-Chish-holm, ma’am, of the C-Chisholms o’ Kinloch 
Shin. En-Enshign in ta 73rd, at your service : and, py your 
leave, ma’am — fou.” 

Carrying the finger-tips reverently to his lips before re- 
leasing them, the lad went through the motions of a military 
salute, nodded heavily, closed lack-lustre eyes, leaned his 
head against the rail at the break of the poop and — slept. 

“ ’Tis a soldier-orficer as have lorst his ship, ma’am, and be 
somethin’ overtaken,” said the steersman. 

“ Norratall, q-qui’ shober : s-sleepy, thashall,” corrected 
the gentleman politely, opening one watery eye and closing 
it again with a gentle murmur of “ K-King’s health — send-off 
— friens’ — guid friens’.” 

“ Friends, indeed ! What wicked foolishness ! — and you, 
sir, so young ! ” exclaimed Susan indignantly, taking in the 
situation and vexed at having spent her sympathy upon 
1 intoxication. 

Ridiculously relaxed, unseasonably somnolent, the new 
arrival reposed, and it was in this condition that Furley 
presently discovered him, bemused but loyal, able indeed to 
reply to each and every inquiry with the formula : “ Ta King. 
Cot pless him ! ” His name had become a matter of con- 
jecture ; his regiment, and, what was more to the purpose, the 
name of the transport in which he berthed, were for the time 
irrecoverable. 

What an admirable thing is knowledge of the world in a 
saint ! Furley was a man who had seen too much of life to be 
easily surprised at any manifestation of human frailty. Taking 
the youth in with half an eye, he bade roll him in a spare 
\ staysail and lay him along in the lee waist-scuppers with an 
oakum boat-fender under his head, “ For,” said he, “ when a be 


218 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


sober enough to put a name to his ship ’twill be time enough 
to talk o’ puttin’ him aboard. Meanwhile thee’d best keep 
clear of him, Miss Tighe, ma’am, so to speak.” 

Sue assenting, spent the rest of the day at her knitting 
beneath the taffrail, entertained by the sober discourse of 
a Quaker steersman, who, knowing the coast by heart, ex- 
pounded to the lady passenger by word of mouth the succes- 
sion of headlands : Pennance, Rosemullion, Helford River, 
Black Head, the Manacles, and the Lizard, which she would 
have seen had this channel-fog but lifted. 

But the girl’s thoughts were busy with that foolish young 
man in the staysail : somewhere, surely, had she. seen that nose. 
But where ? So the day wore. 


The delicious brief midsummer twilight drew on ; the 
northerly wind had overcome its competitor ; the convoy had 
run out of the fog, and, heading south-west with half a breeze 
abaft the beam, was running free. They had lost the land : 
it was Sue’s first experience of open sea. Here were two 
hundred sail travelling on into the gates of the sunset over a 
steel-blue planisphere. The weather was glorious, the water 
alongside clean and wine-dark — a new element to the girl used 
for long weeks on shipboard to the yellow Thames and the 
faint green opacity of the Channel. They were off at last, 
a mighty company ; every hour of this breeze bore her nearer 
to where she would be ; a wife she was, and would find her 
husband yet. She could have sung ; all should be explained, 
not pardoned : she would not blame him, but circumstances. 
She had paused in her walk at the break of the poop and, 
staying herself against the gentle pitching of the brig, with her 
hands upon the oaken rail, stood thus enjoying the triumph of 
the dying day, humming snatches of old songs, brimful of the 
thoughts of youth, which are long, long thoughts, and in most 
of us find no expression, nor found any in Sue, unless one counts 
the tints and contours of a woman’s unconscious beauty, the 
gleam of white teeth through parted lips, the tiny movements 
of nostrils drinking in the salted breeze, the restrained dance- 
steps of impatient feet, the flutter of an escaped tress around 
the pink shell of a rosy ear. 

Life and love were her only modes of expression, and, alack, 
through no fault of hers, both, ere her twentieth year, were 
in jeopardy of shipwreck. 

She had forgotten for an hour or two past the existence of 
that unbidden guest : his presence was recalled to her by the 
stirring of the canvas under which he lay : a hand appeared ; 
the man was awaking : the lady desired to see no more, and 


219 


TERTIUM QUID 

returned to her end of the deck. But she was not to escape 
him ; the stranger’s personality pursued her still ; the skipper 
was mounting the companion with a troubled visage, handling 
the wig from which, for the second time that day, he had torn 
a curl. 

“ Oh, Thomas Furley, do let the poor thing off ! It will never 
see the end of the voyage at this rate. I had better begin a 
woollen night-cap for thee at once.” 

“ Well, well, I dew fare to think as thee’d best, my dear, for 
as things frame aboard this hare brig, the poor scratch’ll not 
last me acrost the Bay, let alone to Gib. Who’d a-thought 
as ewents would have tarned out that stoopid ? Here’s this 
orficer-boy sober enough to give an account of hisself. Sims 
he carries the King’s colour in the 73rd, Lord M’Leod’s Regi- 
ment. (Highlanders they be, so he say ; rum company for 
Us, eh ?) He sim naterally anxious to rejine his mess, like- 
wise for to set eyes upon his kit. Now, heart alive, what be 
I to dew with him ? ” The speaker’s brow wrinkled with 
perplexities as yet unshared by Sue ; his hands fingered the 
mutilated wig, turning it between them — another curl was 
evidently in danger. Sue took it from him. 

“ Nay, but what prevents you from signalling to his ship 
and setting him on board her ? ” 

“ A nateral question for a woman, Miss Tighe, ma’am — my 
dear, I’d say ; but it sims as his ship is one o’ the tew as took 
the ground under Pendennis, an’ he bein’ drunk, and his 
boatmen as bad or wuss, didn’t see no difference atween the 
tew Marys. ‘ All in the fambly,’ no doubt they says ; but 
it comes to this, there be his ship hard and fast (onless they’ve 
towed her up-harbour by this), and here be we with this on- 
fortnit young friend chucked aboard us jest as he stand. 
He’ve bin and gone and lorst ivry mortal thing in this blessed 
world : his purse, his company, his commission, his kit, his 
weapons (better without them, in my opinion, but there !). 
Fact, here we’ve got him on our hands without a stitch o’ 
travelling linen, nor so much as a hair-brush nor a hand- 
kercher.” 

Sue’s clear laugh might have been heard in the forecastle. 
“ Oh, if that is all, he will not suffer long. Think of the rolls 
of longcloth which good Mr. Hippisley sent on board for 
me. Handkerchiefs, indeed ? If one of you can take his 
measurements, I’ll fit him out from top to toe in a week, Mr. 
Furley.” 

“ Bless thy kind heart, but that’s as the weather allows, 
Miss Susan, ma’am ; not but what I sim to fare to think as 
thee’d manage somehow, for I niver see tailor ashore to match 
thee with the needle. But, meantime, where are we to berth 


220 THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 

the young gen’lman ? Nights is warm at this time o’ 
year ” 

“ Oh, but you cannot let him lie on deck, sir, nor berth 
forward with the sailors — they would not like it ; and I think 
you said in the Downs the forecastle was very full. Why 
not clear out the spare locker next to Mr. Sweetapple ? ” 

“ And over agin thee ? ’Tis closeish stowage, Susan, my 
gal. . . . Thee are sure thee won’t object ? ” 

“ I ? Why ? I am a married woman. And, ^beside, what 
else is to be done ? ’Tis but for a few days at most.” 

But it was for more. To begin with, neither the frigate 
nor either of the gun-brigs — the only possible craft to which 
this derelict could be made over — took notice of the brig’s 
waft, and by the end of the week the young stranger was 
too grateful, too comfortable, and upon too friendly terms 
with his hosts, for the idea of a transfer to be entertained by 
either of the parties to the subsisting arrangement. 

“Ye ken, Mester Furley, that a certain ceremony prevails 
at a regimental mess, and that a shentleman pro-jeckit intill 
the midst of pairfect strangers (Southrons, forbye ; some of 
them aiblins officers’ leddies), wanting baith siller and uniform, 
would be subjeckit to inconveniences from the first, and 
might hae his deeficulties in presairvin’ the status of his rank 
and gentrice — so, ef ye can pit up wi’ ma pree-sence, and the 
young leddy disna objec’ ” 

It appeared that the young lady did not object. The 
irregularity of the young gentleman’s first introduction, and 
other matters, were tacitly overlooked, or admonished by a 
word when occasion offered, and never again referred to. 
The indulgence which our working classes still extend to in- 
toxication was granted by all classes less than a century since 
to what was then considered a manly foible. Susan frowned, 
pitied, and pardoned. 

In the matter of his accommodation she declined absolutely 
to be considered, or to accept the post of referee. “ I am a 
beggar myself, sir, an object of our good Mr. Furley ’s charity : 
yes, and like you, in the King’s service (strange that two of 
us should be dependent upon the goodness of these kind 
people). I am the wife of Major Tighe. D’ye happen to 
have met my husband ? ” 

Ensign Chisholm had already learned from the skipper as 
much of the lady’s circumstances as would put him upon his 
guard : he asked no questions ; he did not know the Major, 
but found a willingness within him to make the acquaintance 
of the Major’s wife. He was very young, ardent and honour- 
able ; an unspoiled youth of a poor ancient stock of Highland 
gentry, sensitive, reticent, hardy, and proud. His barrack 


22t 


TERTIUM QUID 

experiences at Hounslow and Pendennis had disgusted his 
native virtue ; he welcomed this return to a godly society 
and to language and living as clean as the sea- wind. This 
lady brought near to his fancy the forms of bonny sisters of 
his own in the far-away north, where the misty, gray mountains 
crowd in around the head of Loch Shin. But there was 
more than mere femininity in question ; her face puzzled him. 

And his her. It was neither his youth, nor his sex, noi the 
general resemblance of his small personal traits to the ways 
of her brother Draycott (whose inattention to her letter still 
grieved and surprised her), but her memory was tantalised 
by a more particular likeness in this young Scot to an in- 
definite image of an unlocalised haunting entity whom she 
had encountered elsewhere. 

One day light broke. The young people were sitting within 
earshot of the helmsman ; Susan, turning a burning face 
toward the youth, said hurriedly and low : “I trust ye will 
permit me to return your guinea, Mr. Chisholm.” 


CHAPTER II 


AT SEA 

So, in the lengthening days of that delaying spring of 1779* 
the girl sailed away upon her life’s adventure. We will 
neither overrate nor minimise it ; women have done as much 
for love before and since, and to eyes accustomed to impor- 
tunate maps and the solicitations of the organisers of Mediter- 
ranean cruises, to which all things in the way of foreign travel 
are summed up in a booklet of coupons, a run out to the Rock 
may seem a simple affair. But things have changed mightily 
during the past hundred and thirty years, and that secular 
contraction of the globe’s surface, which they tell us is ever 
in progress, must surely have accelerated, bringing places sur- 
prisingly near, which were then remote and tediously difficult 
of access. 

Moreover, ’twas war-time : and who to-day can give their 
proper value to the words ? To us, the sheltered people, war 
is merely something distant, temporary, and disagreeable ; 
a fuss in the papers, a nuisance to be abated by the proper 
authorities ; at worst, a disease under control, with con- 
valescence and its compensations already in sight. That 
hostilities should touch Us, should endanger anything We 
really value (nearer than some remote and troublesome 
colony, say), should restrict the usual supplies, delay the 
Indian mails, or limit our continental tours, is outside our 
experience and needs a resolute effort of the imagination 
to bring within focus. 

But to those ancestors and ancestresses of ours, one’s 
grandfathers’ grandparents, who jump so close to the eye 
and grow so vividly human and real when a forgotten bundle 
of yellow letters is untied, and the long-dead hearts are set 
beating once more and their long-silent voices awaken — to 
these, I say, War-time had its definite and particular 
significance. This war of the year 1779 was no affair of 
rectification of frontiers, no punitive expedition, nor recon- 
naissance in force. It was not distant at all, but quite close, 


222 


AT SEA 


223 

and threatening to be closer. Paul Jones (“ The Pirate ”) 
had hovered for months off the western coasts making prizes, 
had even burnt the shipping in Whitehaven (a place of 
consequence then, with a West Indian fleet of its own). Nor 
had any one found time or courage to interfere with him ; our 
admirals, Keppel and his second-in-command, having quar- 
relled and stood their trials, found more serious matters to 
occupy their valorous attentions than the integrity of our 
shores. A touch of the Summer Palace this ; but there 
was no lack of chinoiseries in the management of our affairs 
at the moment. King George, having insisted too stiffly 
upon his pound of tea, had aroused the spirit of the Bostonians, 
to whom other colonists had rallied, and now, the mutinous 
Madras Council having furnished her with valid excuse, 
France was coming into it, dragging Spain at her heels. 
Neither was keen, both were rotten, and revolution near ; 
with the Spaniard especially was no chivalrous alacrity ; 
his minister, whilst discussing the terms of alliance, “ quivered 
in every limb and could scarce articulate.” Nathless, we 
had plenty upon our backs in 1779. 

And now for a racial touch. Englishmen, who were so 
deadly sick of the American muddle, which had degenerated 
into Indian massacres, diversified by ludicrous blundering (a 
certain Captain French had just surrendered four armed 
schooners and his entire force of a hundred men to a lieutenant 
and four privates who had gravely represented themselves 
as bringing the summons of an irresistible army) — our country- 
men, I say, who would enlist upon no terms for America, took 
the shilling by the thousand to fight the French.” and poor 
King George became almost popular again. Verily, we are 
the people. 

Truly, this was no little war. All four combatants were 
exhausted before it really began. Those revolting English- 
men across ff the herring-pond ” * were so nearly humbled 
that they, who had drawn the sword rather than pay a doit 
of interest upon debt incurred in their own defence against 
these Frenchmen, were supplicating young King Louis gra- 
ciously to assume the Protectorate of America — and advance 
them a little ready money. Oh, my brothers, my brothers ! 

Folly, indecision, and mixed motives all round — so much 
we can descry ; also that this bloody business will go burrow- 
ing on like a cancer, affecting far distant members ; Sugar 
Islands, of course, will exchange hands ; there will be killing 
on African rivers ; in Hyderabad there shall be ruin and 

* How modern and preventable does the dispute seem when one 
comes upon the colloquialism in a business letter of that day ! 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


224 

destruction, and (touching us more closely) the British 
Channel shall become such a risk for shipping that much 
London tonnage shall go north-about by way of the Orkneys, 
and all valuables from the East shall be landed at Bristol, 
or at Gloucester, be carted over the Cots wolds to Lechlade, 
and so down to London in barge by way of Oxford and 
Maidenhead. (Does this appeal to the modern mind ?) 

Incidentally an allied fleet shall sweep the Channel and 
coop up ours at Spithead, and it shall be touch-and-go with 
us whether we shall not be invaded at last. 

But none of these happenings shall come into our story ; 
merely shall this item closely affect us, that Spain, yearning 
to recover her southern fortress, shall bind France and herself 
by a solemn pact “ neither to consent to peace, truce, nor 
suspension of hostilities until Gibraltar be surrendered.” 

And, as we know, it is to this particular focus of the war, 
now fanned to flame, that our Susan is hastening as fast as 
Friend Hippisley’s brig and Thomas Furley’s seamanship 
may carry her. 

Thus the voyage began. I would have you realise not 
only the perspective but the intimate circumstance of it, 
make you see — but shall probably fail in my endeavour — 
the tininess of the ship, the straitness of that small, dark 
cabin where Sue must sit in heavy weather with nothing to 
amuse her but her knitting ; for the brig rolled so abominably 
that, apart from the smell of bilge-water, there was no holding 
such heavy books as the only two upon Master Furley’s shelf, 
a big Bible, and a smaller volume, a Compleat Modern 
Navigator’s Tutor , by Joshua Kelly of Broad Street , Wapping, 
at Wapping New Stairs, 1720. There was, indeed, the 
master’s private sea-clock, a hanging sand-glass, which 
the girl took under her charge and turned end for end at 
three-hour intervals. She could empty and repack her chest, 
too, wondering, smiling, and almost weeping over the prodigal 
kindness and minute forethought of her host. The quantity, 
variety, and solid worth of the outfit took her breath at her 
first discovery of its presence on board, and her realisation 
that everything within that substantially built box, with its 
rope-becket at either end, and her name painted upon its 
lid, was her very own. The thing was five times the size 
of her hair trunk (redeemed for her by Jasper Tutty on the 
morrow of her rescue). The child had never possessed so 
much clothing before in her life, and, marvel of marvels, the 
sizes and the fitting were admirable. Surely the hand of 
Jemima was in this, her darling Jemima, Jemima of the many- 
wrinkled, cap-encircled, homely face ; much-experienced, 
tireless in silent kindnesses, just such a countenance as Vader 


AT SEA 


225 

Heist would have put upon canvas ; albeit Sue had never 
I heard of Vader Heist. 

So, upon roily days the girl sorted and rejoiced, laughing 
at times with catches and happy constrictions of the white 
throat, and praying as fervently for the welfare of those 
kind hearts she was leaving behind as they were praying 
for hers. 

Thus, in dirty weather, of which she had not overmuch, 
but on fair days she kept the deck, as her fellow-passenger 
attempted to do in all weathers. 

The poor lad suffered for it, bearing his sufferings with 
the silent pride of youth. His maritime experiences in the 
land-embraced sea-lochs of his native Sutherland had been 
poor preparation for the staggering buffets of beam-seas, and 
the down-plunge of the little brig into ocean valleys where 
her lower sails lost the wind. 

In a word, young Chisholm was undergoing the humiliating 
experiences incidental to a first week at sea. He alone of the 
company of the Mary of Yarmouth failed at the trencher, 
who by nature and habit was an able trencherman. He 
alone had no sea-legs, whose legs had never failed him before. 
He could not pace the deck beside the lady without barging 
into her : twice he had slipped up whilst in her presence and 
bumped himself disgracefully ; he had fallen foul of the 
steersman whilst turning and had been fain to embrace the 
binnacle. He had emerged from the cabin on all-fours. 

The lady, secure in the equilibrium acquired during her 
three weeks’ voyage between London and the Start, tripped 
and sidled, pliantly giving to the plunge and recovery of the 
lively little craft, with a frank grace which her comrade 
yearned to imitate. To accompany her in her daily consti- 
tutional was at present beyond his powers, but he set himself 
to practise at night. 

To him, patrolling the poop in persevering zig-zags, came 
i Zabulon Sweetapple, mate, crooking an undesired arm. 

“ A dark ship this, Mr. Chis’sum.” The man’s voice sounded 
mournful and low. 

“ I had not notticed it, sir. We hang the usual lights, I 
suppose. And, as for illuminating this deck, the binnacle 
is mair than suffeecient, for it iss to avoid being seen at my 
exercises that I practise them at night.” In speaking so 
stiffly he reckoned without his legs, and was fain to clutch 
the arm he had rejected. 

The mate groaned hollowly. ££ Bodily exercise profiteth 
little,’ saith the apostle, and when I spoke of darkness I spoke 
in a figure. D’ye know, sir, that barring us two, and the 
cook — a poor creature that hardly counts — there be nought but 

15 


226 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


Quakers in our company ? Quakers ” he sighed, “ as 

calls theirselves the Lord’s people and despiseth others. 
Pharisees, I calls ’em.” 

" A ferry goot sort of fowk, in ma humble opeenion, Mr. 
Mate.” 

“ Closed to reason, sir ; wise in their own conceit. Aye, 
aye, a dark ship, a dark house ! £ Son of man, thou dwellest 

in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see 
and see not : they have ears to hear and hear not : for they 
are a rebellious house ’ (’Zekiel, twelve, two). Now, p’raps 
ye’ll not believe me, sir, but ’tis gawspel fact as they Quakers 
reject the ordinances ; no bread, no wine, and, wust of all, 
no ile.” Another sepulchral groan. 

“ Dear me, you don’t say so ! ” replied Chisholm in con- 
ciliatory wise, trying hard to keep down his supper. What 
then are you ? ” 

£ ‘ I be one of the last o’ the Lord’s Anointers, sir,” proudly 
thumping a broad bosom. “ Mebbe you niver heard on ’em ; 
howsumiver, they be an ancient and honourable seek, once 
strong in numbers, but now dwindled to a few ; a handful 
of corn on the top of a mountain, or rather aboard a little 
brig, only me and the cook (a new convert of mine, and a 
weakish vessel). But,” kindling, £< few or many, whilst there 
be one, so be ’tis this one, we’ll march on to glory anointing ! ” 

His voice rolled out in a sort of song. The great bald head 
of Furley appeared at the break of the poop, silently keeping 
an eye upon the manoeuvres of his second-in-command. 

“ Seemingly you’ve never heerd of our dispensation. No ? 
Tha’s curis, too. You see, we ’noints the sick. With ile, 
ye know.” He produced a small bottle and drew a cork : a 
rank, greasy odour exhaled, which began to turn the stomach 
of his unfortunate auditor. 

££ Now, if you’ll pardon my mentioning it, sir, you was 
mortial sick in my last watch.” 

“ And am like to be so again, if ye persist in sticking that 
stuff under ma neb ! ” cried the lad, his inwards heaving. 

“ That’s the flesh, sir ; the sperrit is what we aims at. 
Which brings me to my pint. Jest ye let me anoint ve — a 
little dab ” 

“Not for worlds, my goot man — oop ! — pardon me ! ” 

“ Zabulon Sweetapple, I’ll trouble thee to put that muck 
o’ thine in the scuppers and tend to thy duty : she be a full 
point off her course.” 

The master’s head disappeared again ; the mate, muttering 
an unapostolic oath, turned from Chisholm to the steersman, 
whom he addressed in terms which left that dreamer’s ears 
tingling until the end of his trick. 


AT SEA 


227 

Susan, too, was smilingly obdurate to his missionary zeal. 

“ But I am Church of England, you see, Mr. Sweetapple, 
baptized and confirmed ; one cannot be two things at once ; 
can one ? Of course, whilst I am with these dear Quakers 
I do as they do : I can’t help that, can I ? How do you feel 
yourself, left alone, as you tell me ? 

“ Upheld, ma’am, won’erfully upheld, for the most part. 
Ye see, ma’am, I am a saved man, converted under good 
Mr. j Newton — Captain John Newton, as he was then — in his 
Guineaman. Oh, a holy man ! Sweet and precious times 
we’ve had together, him and me, with the pitch a-bubblin’ 
betwix the deck-planks and the niggers a-hollerin’ agoa ! agoa ! 
under hatches.” 

“ Was he a slaver, then ? ” asked Sue, somewhat aghast. 

“ Black Ivory, ma’am, the usual thing, as foretold by Scrip- 
ture, ‘ Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be ’ 
(Genesis nine, twenty-five). Yes, upheld, as a rule. Not but 
what I’ve had my times of sperritool declension. Port, a bit, 
ma’am ” (it was light weather and Sue was taking a lesson 
in steering). “ The brig bein’ on her best point of sailing and 
the wind so stiddy, ye’ll need but to keep yer hands on the 
tiller. Not but what these here tay-kles be handy in hard 
weather and with a following run of sea ; beautiful provisions 
of nature I calls ’em. Oh, I be come of godly folk, Anointers, 
the whole lot of us, for hunderds and hunderds of years, and 
with a drop of salt water in the blood as works to the top at 
times. Why, there’s my father’s uncle’s head-board in Grays 
churchyard to show it. (They set it up as soon as his snow 
come back from Caraccas without him.) ' Sacred to the Memory 
of Tobias Sweetapple, Master Mariner of this Parish, what 
met his death at the Hands of a Shark. 

“ ‘ Let me die the death of the Righteous , and let my last end 
be like his' 

“Yes, all gone, ma’am, the last of the true old Anointers 
of the Chilterns. None left but me, and these Quakers seek 
my life to destroy it (in a manner of speaking). Did ye ever 
hear how near I come to bein’ a Latter Day Sacramentarian ? 
No ! Then I’ll tell ye. Ah, that was an escape an’ a half ! ” 

“ But why an escape ? If you are the last of your people, 
would it not be natural to join some other body ? ” 

“ Ah, yah, ma’am, that’s the wisdom o’ this world. It is 
written, ‘ A seed shall serve Him ’ (Psalms twenty-two, thirty). 
We^are the Seed ; that’s me. But, as I was a-going to tell 
ye, some years back when on a job below-bridge, lighterin', 
I fell into such a low spot as I din’t seem to mind which end 
came fo’most. So, bein’ led away by Satan in the shape of a 
youngish female widder-woman (he makes up as an angel of 


228 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


light at times, and comes nigh to deceive the very Elect, as she 
did me ; but there !) She was a L.D.S. and kep’ a cook-shop 
at Millwall and swep’ out and dusted down Zoar Chapel and 
found it in candles at so much a month. She come from down 
Ashford way, and made flead-cakes. Ah ! ” (the mate sighed 
regretfully). “ The flesh-pots o’ Egypt ! ” he murmured, and 
proceeeded. “ I sort of made up to her (being weak and 
misled), and she made out she’d have me if I was a full church 
member : so I made apperlication to the elders. 

“ They was what we call Leadin’ People of the Cause ; I 
never see leadinger, and sorter kep’ Zoar Chapel in their 
breeches pockets. 

“ Sez they, ‘ Brother Sweetapple,we be a bit s’prised at your 
letter. Our free seats is open to all, yes, to the weakest and 
humblest of God’s creatures, and you have the privilege of 
putting something inter the plate same as we. But full 
membership in our little Zion us keeps for the Chosen only.’ 
Then they sets to and tries me on a wind and runnin’ free. 
Lastly they ups and sez they thinks mine an interesting 
case and was pleased to hev met me ; it’d mean total immer- 
sion (’twas Jenooary), and when I din’t shy at that, they 
shifts and sez they thought my intellectools wasn’t up to their 
mark, and I’d best talk it over with the Lord and — p’raps apply 
agin six months later. 

“ Bout June I writ agin, but whilst they hung in the wind, 
that young widder-woman ups and gives me the mitten and 
marries a tailor, which was a blessin’ in disguise, and naterally 
opened my eyes to the true kericter of the L.D.S. Still, having 
applied, I stuck to it and kep’ my app’intment — same two 
leadin’ elders, and pretty stiff and offish I found ’em. * Sweet- 
apple,’ they begins, no brothering me this time, ma’am, my 
best lighter had sunk in Limehouse Reach, and they’d heerd 
on’t. (Stabboard, stabboard — keep her full, ma’am.) ‘ Sweet- 
apple,’ sez they, * We’re more s’prised than we care to say. We 
giv you good counsel.’ ‘ And I took it,’ sez I. ‘ To talk it over 
with the Lord,’ sez they. ‘ An’ I done it/ sez I, ‘ and He 
giv me a right clear message.’ * Ho,’ sez they, very lofty like, 
as though a lighterman was sorter presumin’, and none but 
owners and wharfingers should take orders from Headquarters. 
‘ And, pray, what might He hev bid ye do ? ’ sez they. * He 
say,’ sez I, very broken-spirited like, ‘ Go, thou, Zabulon 
Sweetapple, and make apperlication for full membership in 
Zoar, and I wishes ye luck. Not as I reckons you’ll get in, for 
I bin trying to get inter that there chapel Myself this thirty 
year, and ain’t in yet.’ ” 

“ Oh, Mr. Sweetapple, how wicked of you ! Whatever did 
those poor men say ? ” cried Susan, shocked but amused. 


AT SEA 


229 


“ Never ye mind what they said, ma’am. Fact, I dunno 
as I waited long enough to catch the drift on’t, feeling a call 
to depart. And look ye here, ma’am. (Keep her full.) 
Now, see what follered ; that there female widder-woman was 
brought to bed with triplets first run, and druv her tailorman 
to drink and the Marshalsea, showing plainly that ‘ All things 
work together for good to them that love God ’ (Romans eight, 
twenty-eight). And there go three bells, and ’tis time to keep 
her away, so p’raps I’d best take the helium.” 


CHAPTER III 


JUSTIN PROVIDES HIMSELF WITH AN ENEMY AND A FRIEND 

Meanwhile, on board H.M.S. Paladin the cabin passengers 
were shaking down into the relative positions which they were 
to fill during the voyage, and making initiatory movements 
towards mutual acquaintance in the guarded and tentative 
manner of the British hniddle class. Those who had boarded 
the frigate in the Thames had already come to an under- 
standing, establishing mild attractions or repulsions as their 
cases might be. Major Justin, for instance, was civilly 
keeping himself clear of the pretty widow, a Mrs. Hollinghurst, 
whom we have already met casually at Blossom’s Inn upon 
the arrival of a certain coach by which the lady had travelled 
from St. Albans, and other passengers from Chester. 

Our Major had heard something of the lady’s story : of 
her love-match, two years before, with old Colonel Holling- 
hurst of the 1 2th, and of her husband’s death at Gibraltar, 
whither he had sailed with his regiment, proposing that his 
bride should follow him in more comfort than was possible in 
a crowded and ill-found transport. 

It was understood that the late colonel had expressed a 
wish that his widow should visit his grave. 

What was there in this to repel ? Nothing. Let us admit 
that our Major was somewhat capricious. Why is one drawn 
to this human creature and repelled by that other ? Justin 
could have given no particular reason for his attitude ; for 
his want of complete sympathy with a really charming person ; 
nor did he feel called upon to do so, even to himself. He did 
not especially care for her society, and that was enough for 
him. It certainly was not that he preferred another (there 
were two other ladies on board) ; there was no woman in the 
case, nor room for any in his heart, as he believed. 

Nor could his want of attention be considered uncivil or 
pointed. Mrs. Hollinghurst asked nothing at his hands ; the 
youngest and handsomest of the three ladies who had shipped 
from Gravesend bore the Major no grudge for his abstraction ; 
if he cared not for her conversation there were others who did. 


230 


JUSTIN’S ENEMY AND FRIEND 


231 


At Falmouth the frigate filled ; reliefs and the officers in 
charge of them, and more ladies came on board, and the 
business of self-introduction would be recommenced as soon 
as the late arrivals should have regained their appetites and 
their complexions. 

There was one who had lost neither. Whilst the gentlemen 
from Pendennis lined the quarter-deck bulwarks in attitudes 
of passive endurance, and their womenfolk kept their cabins, 
one lady paced the white planking with firmly set and practised 
feet. In person tall, massive, and middle-aged, Roman-nosed 
and double-chinned with the eye and port of a general, she 
surveyed her new command with a smile that was at once 
tolerant and stern. An experienced traveller this ; it was the 
era of the hoop, but, with foreknowledge of the exiguities of 
her kingdom, the lady-paramount had come to it dressed less 
in accordance with the mode than with the requirements of 
narrow passages and a tiny bunk. The effect might be a 
trifle ludicrous, but was characteristic ; this embodiment of 
health, experience, sanity, and sense was a British matron. 

“ I swear that’s ‘Trigge of the Twelfth,’ ” whispered an 
officer from behind his hand. “ Who ? Ah, ye’ll know be- 
fore we have been a week at sea ! I knew her by sight 
at Colchester, years since ; her husband led a wing, but 
she commanded the regiment ; it was wonderful. I heard 
she was at Gib, and didn’t expect her on board. Is there 
anybody here she knows, I wonder ? Hullo, she’s boarding 
Justin ! ” 

The fellow-travellers had already passed one another thrice 
without recognition, a failure for which the lady’s dress, the 
man’s peaked and lappeted travelling-cap, and the nationality 
of both must be responsible. At the fourth meeting the 
lady accosted him : 

“ Colonel Justin has evidently forgotten Mrs. Trigge.” 
Her curtsey was a failure, spoilt by the roll of the frigate : she 
laughed apologetically, and the gentleman, uncovering and 
starting slightly, laughed too, puckering the corners of his 
eyes in a swift spasm of recollection. 

“ Madam ! — your servant ! — and your pardon. Forgotten 
ye ? Indeed no ! ” (Confound it, what is the woman’s 
name ?) “ But when we met — where was it ? Lady 

Anlaby’s rout, for one place (I have it !)— you were— we 
were both of us differently dressed. But, what brings ye here, 
my dear madam ? No ill news from Colonel Trigge, I trust ? 
Thank God for that. Ye were but just landed from Gibraltar 
when we last met, as I think.” 

“ With my daughters ; yes, I see ye recall me, Colonel. 
Yes, their father foresaw troubled times for the garrison and 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


232 

sent us all home, but I’m not the woman to leave my husband 
to stand a siege without a wife to take care of him.” The 
speaker did not look that sort of woman at all. “ So I’ve 
shipped for the Rock again, against orders.” She laughed 
cheerily as one who knows that her disobedience will be con- 
doned, as well it might be, for during her six months’ furlough 
had she not besieged poor Mr. Secretary Jenkinson upon her 
colonel’s behalf ? Had she not set every wheel turning and 
pulled every wire by which promotion might be accelerated ? 
Oh, a terrible intriguer, flagrant, unabashed, and unsnubbable 
is your British matron when upon the warpath, for the 
husband or son of her heart. 

“ But yourself, Colonel,” she ran on ; “ what do ye here ? 
You, who were but just back from the Indies, and in the 
Company’s service, too, where ye had done such wonders, and 
were quite the lion of Town, Colonel.” 

“ Madam, ye are too kind ; I am merely major ! ” inter- 
posed Justin, smiling. 

“ Major ? No, no ; that will hardly pass, will it ? I had it 
iromyou know who — well, Mr. Jenkinson himself, that he had 
offered ye the colonelcy of a regiment.” 

“ He was kind enough to do something of the sort ” 

“And ye were polite enough to decline it? Never tell 
me ! ” 

“ Madam ” — the two were pacing side by side now — “ the 
colonelcy would have taken me to New York, and I most 
particularly wanted to go to Gibraltar.” 

“ Ye did ? — ye good, whimsical man ! Then some other 
gentleman will be thanking ye for the billet ye were foolish 
enough to refuse. But I beg your pardon, for indeed ’tis 
110 business of mine, as no doubt ye are thinking.” 

“ My dear madam, I am thinking nothing so rude. I am 
going to the Rock as a major in the 12th — your husband’s 
regiment ” — the lady bowed and smiled her pleasure at the 
information — “ because on no other terms could I get there 
to do what I have to do. And, now, if I trouble ye, Madam, 
with my private concerns, it is just because the more widely 
my need is known the more chances I have of finding what 
I am seeking. You must know that before leaving Madras 
I accepted the wardship of two young people here at home — 
orphans. One I have found, and, by God’s blessing, have 
settled in life. He is Ensign Travis, now serving at Gibraltar 
in your husband’s regiment. His sister I am still seeking. 
I have followed her, Oh, many a mile ” — he laughed wearily — 
“ last it was from London to Chester, and from Chester back 
to Town ; I have heard of her here, there, and everywhere. 
She is supposed to have contracted an unfortunate marriage. 


JUSTIN’S ENEMY AND FRIEND 233 

Her husband is said to have sailed for Gibraltar last January. 
I am in hopes of finding her with him upon my arrival.” 

” And ye refused your regiment upon such an account as 
this ? ” 

“ No help for it, ma’am ; ’twas my bare duty.” 

“ Then all I’ll say is that I wish from my heart there were 
more like ye in the service. It shall be my pleasure to make 
your ensign’s acquaintance upon our rejoining. I cannot 
recall the name : there was no Travis in the mess when I sailed. 
And the lady, the young lady. By what name shall I ? ” 

“ Ah, ’tis there ye pose me, madam. Her husband’s name 
seems to be either Tighe, or Bowles, I cannot determine which. 
My lawyers had news of him from a hackney coachman, and 
I, from another source, and under another name, heard of him 
from Lord Duddingstone. He is not gazetted as serving 
in any regiment of the line that is quartered at the Rock.” 

“ But there are auxiliaries, as ye know, Major,” remarked 
the lady — “ Corsicans and Hanoverians. Have ye inquired ? ” 

“ I have, but so far ineffectually ; the states are loosely 
kept. There was much confusion and overlapping at the 
War Office under the late Secretary. But I have my hopes.” 

The two passed on still in conference. A very big, red- 
headed officer, seated beneath the weather bulwark in the 
discomfort of incipient nausea, had overheard fragments of 
their conversation as they passed and repassed. At first he 
had paid no attention to matters which, as he conceived, 
touched him in nowise, but at their last passing he had caught 
his own name, slightered altered, indeed, but recognisable, 
and coupled with it the name of his adoption, now dropped. 
He pricked his ears and listened with intentness, “ Begad, an’ 
I’m in luck again,” muttered Boyle, “ for if ’tis at Gibraltar 
ye’ are looking for the gur’rl, ye will be looking a long while. 
And, who the jeuce is this little cock-sparrow who has been 
doggin’ the footsteps of me father’s son this six months ? 
Faith, an’ he’d betther be walkin’ wide of me for his hilth’s 
sake ! ” 


CHAPTER IV 


A QUAKERS’ MEETING INTERRUPTED 

We all of us know, or think that we know, what a Quakers' 
Meeting is like, but to most of us the knowledge is traditional, 
an effect of second-hand impressions, the residuum of common 
report, and in need of bringing up to date. Elia’s essay is 
a classic, and final with regard to the practice of a century 
ago, but the “ Goodly Sect,” as he named it, has altered in 
externals since Lamb shared its gentle spiritual exercises. The 
old inwardness remains, although garb and speech have 
changed. New occasions have bred new issues, and the de- 
scendants of Fox and Penn, those truly heroic innovators, have 
arisen from the meditative silence of a century and are 
strenuously, if quietly, at work again. 

Nowhere to-day shall you see four blank, colour-washed 
walls, enclose such a company as Mr. Walter West has drawn 
in his fine water-colour, the Silent Meeting — rank behind rank 
of placid faces, differing in age and circumstance, but alike in 
expression, the lines of fleshly desire and worldly care subdued 
and smoothed out of countenances sobered and quieted by 
ninety minutes of communion with the Highest in a primal 
silence. 

Such faces are hardly possible to-day, nor are such garments 
worn. I close my eyes and hear the still rustle of poplin, the 
soft creep of silks, the infinitely faint rising and lapsing of 
cap-strings lying upon the bosoms of gentle women. Ah, 
and the colours that rush upon the inward eye that is the bliss 
of solitude, the symphonies of dove-hues and drabs, pale 
lavenders and tender lilacs, unobtrusive half-tints, and lost 
shades of bygone materials. The mittens, too, and the 
creamy effects and delicate textures of those ineffable little 
shawls which my great-aunts wore over their dear shoulders, 
with ends, not hanging loosely in worldly sort, but crossed 
and secured with tiny golden pins. And the dear, queer, old 


234 


AJQUAKERS’ MEETING INTERRUPTED 235 

coal-scuttle bonnets of cardboard, covered with slate-coloured 
satin, and lined with white sarsenet, which were worn over 
caps enclosing plaits of well-ruled hair. (My friend, Mr. West, 
has drawn them all ; there is no one else who can. I say it, 
who know.) 

Such were the women whom Lamb likened to “ troops of 
the shining Ones,” and as such do I recall them. 

Their men were almost equally wonderful. Who nowa- 
days wears the frock-coat of mouse-brown, faced West of 
England broadcloth, a garment with skirts so ample as to 
need lifting at a muddy crossing ? What living tailor could 
be trusted to reproduce the chaste curves of those upright 
collars — (if rolled, or snipped, they were held to lack “ sim- 
plicity ”) — and those immaculate and delightfully wrinkly 
drab ‘ smalls/ and pearl-buttoned gaiters cut full to cover the 
instep and strapped down ? The memorable broad-brimmed 
hats, the thread gloves and all ! They are gone with the 
separated lives, quaint speech, and curbed expression of the 
Middle Age of Quakerism, itself transitional but extraordi- 
arily picturesque. Yes, they are lost to us : there is no one 
left who knows how to dress in the simple, grand manner of 
the saints. Our bishops ? Ah, my dear madam, a bishop 
nowadays is an underpaid, overdriven person, breaking into 
his capital year by year, living beyond his means, like the 
rest (has he not published his accounts ?), killing himself in a 
breathless scramble to overtake arrears ; licensing, ordaining, 
confirming, inhibiting, voting, scheming, protesting against 
time, a pathetic personality, a martyr if you will, and a 
martyr of your making, yes, yours, who demand all this of 
him, and pay him an inadequate three or four thousand a year. 
(Do you in your hearts believe that an apostle would have 
taken the job on for the money ?) Nay, I beseech ye, bishop 
me no bishops ; excellent fellows they are, but you must not 
claim for them that they know how to carry their finery. It 
came to them too late in life ; they are almost as ill at ease 
in their millinery as an esquire bedell at a Cambridge degree- 
giving. No, a modern bishop lives too hard for his clothes to 
preserve the bandbox sheen and the marjoram scent ; they 
betray rough usage. None will deny that some feeling is 
occasionally shown at Church Conferences, and a prelate who 
had ridden the whirlwind and controlled the storm of inter- 
necine polemics may be expected to display the results in the 
sit of his apron and the slackened rigging of his hat. 

But to my Quakers. They too have descended into the 
arena, gaining much but losing, alas ! the aroma and distinction 
which I remember, I who have seen it die away and fade into 
the light of common day. 


236 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


The super-oriental deliberation is gone too. 

Only in some tiny country meeting-house, deep amid copses 
and corn, if there, shall you find your ideal. The nipping 
silence of self-examination, the breathless minute preceding 
the deliverance of his message by some Ministering Friend, 
the broken outpouring of unpremeditated prayer. Such a 
scene will remain in the memory of the participant : the black 
oaken beams overhead, the hard uncushioned benches 
polished by two centuries of use, the small-paned windows 
darkened by the flat green palms of encroaching ivy which 
has o’er-flourished rooftree and chimney-stack, and awaits 
leave to take fuller possession, the sunshine through the 
open door and the obstreperous calling of the cuckoo in the 
graveyard tree intensifying the depth of the silence main- 
tained by perhaps a score of deeply meditating humans, 
elderly, childless, dwindling. Have patience, ivy, thy time 
will come ! Not here in this shoaling backwater, but afar, in 
populous centres, in Garden Cities, Settlements, and Adult 
Schools, is the life of Quakerism pulsing strongly, modernising, 
adapting, and growing ; a force to be reckoned with. 

If now I should introduce you to a Quakers’ Meeting 
aboardship a hundred and thirty years ago, I will beg you to 
clear your minds of the unessential. 

It was First Day (Sunday) morning at sea. The Straits 
convoy, heart-stirring sight, was running due south before a 
gentle, crisp, nor ’westerly wind, with the loom of the high 
Portuguese land on the port quarter. Every bluff-bowed, 
square-rigged craft of them all dressed for Sunday and flying 
her red ensign at the peak, and whatever else of split pennant 
and house-flag she could show, trudged across the polished, 
whale-backed seas, nodding to herself and mumbling the white 
bicker beneath her dolphin-striker, like a dog that carries a 
bone in his mouth. 

His Majesty’s ship Paladin, forty guns, ranging among her 
charge, as a colley ranges his flock, had overlooked a score or 
so of low-riding, sail-shaded decks. The day being fair, 
her quarter rail was topped by the caps and bonnets of her 
passengers, amusing themselves in superior fashion by quizzing 
the doings of their social inferiors. 

Here, on the snow, lumbering alongside, was a watch in 
disgrace — putting in a Sabbath morning at the holy-stone. 
On the brig ahead ’twas washing-day. Cards and sleep 
engrossed the energies of a third, whilst in the waist of a 
fourth craft two apprentices were deciding the merits of 
some question with the fist, watched by their elders. The 
gentlemen upon the frigate’s quarter-deck admired the young 
rascals’ pluck, the ladies cried fie and refused to look, but 


A QUAKERS’ MEETING INTERRUPTED 237 

looked nevertheless. “Oh, the naughty boys! Captain, 
can nothing be done to stop them ? ” Captain Wynyard thus 
appealed to opined that to fight was a trick of youth, and 
that a little blood-letting would make of them the better 
friends. The elder ladies sniffed, the young widow shook 
her parasol at the commander, “ Captain, I fear ye have a 
hard heart ! ” 

“ On the contrary, ma’am, ’tis tender as your own, but 
what would ye have me do ? put my frigate about to let ye 
scold a couple of naughty youngsters ? But unless there’s 
something amiss with my glass, there’s nothing aboard this 
brig we are overhauling to offend the finest of female sensi- 
bilities. Look ye there, ma’am ! ’cod, ’tis a show of wax 
figures. We’ll see more of this. Port your helm half a 
point, Mr. Pratt ; lay her alongside as near as may be without 
carrying anything away aloft, or knocking the tar off her 
sheer-strakes.” 

The noble frigate, a wall of painted broadside culminating 
in a pyramid of canvas, accurately cut, accurately set, and 
every cloth of it drawing, came up upon the brig’s starboard 
quarter, the green seas dividing into white fleeces beneath her 
forefoot and hissing along her side, blanketing the smaller 
craft as she took the wind out of her sails. So well was she 
conned and steered that there was not a lady upon her 
quarter-deck but thought she could have tossed her glove 
S aboard the narrow poop below. 

1 “ But what are the creatures doing ? ” asked Mrs. Holling- 
hurst of the tall, ruddy-haired Irish major upon her left 
hand. 

“I’ve not the faintust idea, me dear leedy. I’d say they 
were sitting for their portruts, if such a thing were possible. 
Did j’ever witnuss such a scene before upon the high seas, 
Captain ? What explanation d’ye offer ? ” 

“ They remind me of the stone Buddhas one sees in the 
East ; eighteen of them, and each as still as a graven image,’’ 
remarked a small, nattily dressed man upon the widow’s 
• right (our friend Major Justin, none other). “ The same 
fixity, the same abstraction. Will not one of them raise an 
eyelid ? Ah, there’s a woman among them ; surely such an 
apparition as a King’s frigate within reach of her hand will 

j distract her attention ! Ah ! what 11 

The ships were now at their nearest, a proximity only 
possible to the daring and consummate seamanship of the 
past. The frigate’s approach had becalmed the smaller 
craft, which rode with hanging sails upon an even keel 
beneath the lee of the taller ship, every nook and corner of her 
decks open to inspection. Her steersman alone was standing, 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


238 

the rest of her company lined the poop bulwarks facing 
inward, seated upon water-casks, beef-tubs, the flemished 
coils of the main-halliard falls, or the deck-planking 
itself. 

The spectators hung as far over the hammock-nettings as 
their respective heights permitted, the better to overlook the 
singular scene below. 

“ Mummies returning to Egypt by sea, ma’am,” replied the 
First Luff to Mrs. Trigge’s question. 

“ I suggest the Seven Sleepers broken adrift,” observed the 
officer of the watch. 

“Or a petrifaction of Noah’s Ark,” hazarded the Irish 
major. 

“ Or the Wise Men of Gotham at sea in a bowl,” put in a 
midshipman in an undertone. 

“ Oh, do help me up a little, I can’t see a bit ! ” cried Mrs. 
Hollinghurst petulantly. Both Justin and Boyle assisted 
her and were rewarded with impartial smiles. “ Oh, thanks, 
both of you — most kind ! This is better, how singular ! 
But what is he going to do ? What is he doing ? ” 

“ Praying, ma’am,” replied the captain, and men stopped 
speaking. 

One of the bent, engrossed figures had removed his cap, 
had laid it upon the deck and set his knee upon it. The rest 
arose to their feet, uncovering. It was in the act of rising 
that Susan, the one woman in that silent company, raised 
her face and found herself looking into the very eyes of the 
Irish major, not fifty feet away. Her scream, a scream of 
ecstasy, shook the very hearts of all that heard it. There, 
so close to her arms, just across that narrow lane of water, 
was her husband ! She sprang across the brig’s deck, leapt 
upon a water-cask, and had a foot upon the very rail itself 
before Furley and young Chisholm could catch her by the 
skirts. “ Con ! oh, Con, dear ! Let me go ! It is my 
husband ; yes, Major Tighe — my husband, I say ! ” 

Piteous was her outcry, and in vain. As she wailed her 
appeal to it the crimson face peering down upon her purpled 
with passion, the lips blurted a curse and were gone. Major 
Tighe, or Boyle, had slipped to the deck behind him, and 
simultaneously the brig’s sails caught the wind again, filled 
with a joyful clap and the little craft heeled. The frigate, 
by far the faster vessel, was passing, had passed, the water- 
lane widened apace, the show was over. 

The quarter-deck of the Paladin buzzed, the gentlemen 
assisted the ladies to descend, the party broke up into groups, 
all speaking at once, all questioning, “ Who was she ? ” 
** What did she mean ? ” “ Whom was she addressing ? 11 


A QUAKERS’ MEETING INTERRUPTED 239 

“ What brig was that ? ” asked the Captain of the officer 
of the watch, and learned that she was the Mary of Yarmouth . 

“ One of the Hippisley fleet, sir,” added the Third Luff, 
“ with a cargo of beer from Thrale’s for the garrison. 

“And that’s Old Tom Furley, her master, the one in the 
wig who caught the lady’s petticoat. I know him.’* He 
I sketched the ex-gunner’s story in a few bold strokes. 

“ Then it seems we have broken up a Meeting,” smiled 
the Captain. “ Let us hope that His Gracious Majesty 
won’t hear of our misdeeds and take ’em amiss : he is sup- 
posed to cherish a weakness for the Quakers, God bless 
| him ! ” 

“ Or the Quakeresses, God bless them ! ” muttered First 
Luff, and every one smiled, remembering that twenty-year-old 
j story of Hannah Lightfoot and the susceptible youth of 
George. 

“ And whom was the creature addressing, Major Justin ? ” 
asked the pretty widow. “ ’Tis plain that she knows one of 
j us ; not yourself ? Is it possible ? ” 

“ I should have said that she was looking more to your 
1 left, madam,” replied Justin, innocently enough, without 
thought of consequences. 

“To Major Boyle ? La ! How jealous you men are of 
one another ! Let us tax him with it — ask him for an 
explanation.” The lady was mischievously bent at the 
moment, but meant no harm. “ Major ! Where is Major 
Boyle ? ” 

There were others who were asking the same question. By 
' a process of elimination, the Irishman remained the most 
probable object of the fair stranger’s hail. But the Major 
was not to be seen, he had left the deck ; nor, when he re- 
mounted the companion, a few minutes later, was he in the 
humour to submit to cross-examination, or to accept the 
pleasantries of the men in good part. Within the minute 
he had singled out the first lieutenant, drawn him aside, and 
given him to understand that he had said too much. There 
1 were curling lips, for the senior service will have its joke, and 
whilst hating quarrels, is not to be bluffed. No man, what- 
ever his record as a duellist, can stare down the whole ward- 
room of a* crack frigate, and Boyle presently discovered that 
he had his hand in a wasp’s nest, and was like to be the 
helpless victim of practical jokes for the rest of the voyage, 
just the traditional maritime ingenuities of men who had 
been midshipmen themselves yesterday, persons with no- 
thing in this world to lose but their lives and their high spirits, 
possessions of which it was for the moment impossible to 
deprive them. 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


240 

Scenes followed. Captain Wynyard, already apprised and 
watchful, intervened. 

“ I regret, Major, that it has come to this. No, don’t 
interrupt me, if ye please, I am not going to explain, and, 
keep your seat, sir : I command here. As I was about to say, 
’tis a rule of my service that where there can be no fighting 
there shall be no quarrelling. I need hardly say that there 
can be no fighting aboard my ship. . . . Oho ! ‘ Near the 
end of an uncomfortable voyage,’ are we ? So I may take 
it ye propose prosecuting your quarrel at the Rock ? . . . 
Let me tell ye at once, sir, that cannot be. If needful, I 
should feel justified in refusing shore-leave to my officers. 

‘ That would not afflict ye ? * No, but it would not be for 
more than a day, sir ; for one word from me to His Excellency 
would prevent your landing at all. I have the honour of 
the Governor’s good acquaintance, and happen to know the 
light in which he regards affairs of honour. Unless I am 
mistaken, ye are replacing a gentleman whom he broke for 
fighting, or who was killed in a duel, I forget which, but the 
story is well known ; and I give ye my word that if Sir George 
got wind that ye had a matter of this complexion upon your 
hands he would not permit ye to join. ’Twill be close arrest 
for you, sir, and a passage Home aboard the first transport 
that sails. (Ye shall not ship with me.) 

“Ye may spare your sour looks, sir; they will not deter 
me from my duty. Nor can ye quarrel with me, if ye would ; 
but I think better of your judgement. Here is my hand ; take 
it or leave it. If ye take it, I shall understand that ye have 
laid aside all disputes with my ward-room, and shall re- 
produce ye to it upon that footing, and I’ll answer for it 
that my officers will let bygones be bygones.” 

Boyle stared, bridling in silence and felt the blood pumping 
hard to his head, but was not sufficiently beside himself to 
make an enemy of the one man on board who wished him 
well. 

Moreover, there is no arguing with a commander across his 
own cabin table ; so the Irishman forced a smile, extended | 
his hand, and the matter was at an end so far as the lieutenant i 
was concerned. 

But there were tongues on board the Paladin which her 
captain could not curb. The elder ladies laid heads together 
and proposed to probe the scandal upon public grounds. 
Major Boyle’s attentions to Mrs. Hollinghurst were marked ; 
they were obvious ; he should be asked to clear himself before 
things went farther. He was loath, he was adroit, but was 
cornered at last, and by the redoubtable Mrs. Trigge. 

“ I give ye my^wor’rd, madam ” 


A QUAKERS’ MEETING INTERRUPTED 241 

Yes, no doubt, sir ; but we all heard ye addressed as 
Major ** 

“ I am not the only major on board, Madam.” 

4 yand by the diminutive of your Christian name, sir.” 

“ I did not hear it, madam.” 

“ The rest of us did, sir ; and, what is more, heard the young 
person call you her husband. Now, what may we understand 
by that ? M 

“ That your hearing is defectuv, madam. To the best of 
me belief the young woman was addressing yersilf, and her 
; wor’rd was grandmother .” 

“ I thank you, sir ; but if ’twas I who was addressed, why 
1 should you hide yourself behind the bulwarks and leave the 
deck ? ” 

“ Madam, I am no carput-knight, but a souldier who has 
made several campeens, and has near a dozen wounds in him. 
I do not make a song about thim, but a person of your eege 
I and experience should know that such little mementoes have 
I a knack — in a wor’rd, madam, me knee gave way at the 
moment, that’s all.” 

‘‘Sir, I commiserate ye” — curtseying; “but when a 
gentleman’s knee gives way does he usually cry ‘ D — n the 
wench ’ ? ” 

Need one say that the ladies were dissatisfied with the 
Major’s explanation ? Mrs. Lieutenant-Colonel Trigge, as 
representing and embodying public opinion, declined to 
recognise his existence during the remainder of the voyage, 
and allowed it to be known that on reaching the Rock she 
would feel it her duty to institute inquiries. In the mean- 
time Mrs. Hollinghurst, who had not personally caught the 
words “ husband ” and “ Con,” and who thought the be- 
haviour of the elder women inquisitorial and wanting in 
charity, was sensible that she was in the company and 
under the eye of the leaders of the Garrison society, whom 
it behoved her to conciliate, and grew absent, distraite, and cir- 
cumspectly distant when next addressed by the offender; 
and — for she was of a sociable nature — increasingly affable 
to Justin. 

Had the ladies known, there was unimpeachable evidence 
under their hands for all that they suspected. A cowed, ill- 
fed private of foot in the frigate’s waist had witnessed the 
scene and recognised the girl, and knew well the meaning of 
her appeal, and to whom it had been addressed. This man, 
who had enlisted under the name of Wallet, had learned his 
goose-step at Hounslow, and had been shipped with other 
details at Sheerness. He was, as his comrades knew, a person 
of education, letter-writer in ordinary to his company, but of 

16 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


242 

the lowest spirits, and always thrown into a pallid sweat by 
the rare appearances in the waist of Major Boyle, whose eye 
he seemed totally incapable of meeting. The Major, by some 
chance, had not hitherto recognised him. As affairs stood 
’twas to be hoped that no recognition would take place during 
the voyage. The man was not in Boyle’s regiment, and would 
slip from under his hand upon reaching the Rock, but whilst 
he was upon shipboard was in the power of one who had few 
scruples. 

Sue, meanwhile, hanging over the brig’s gunwale with 
yearning, outstretched hands and passionately imploring eyes, 
beheld the frigate’s quarter slide past, port after port, just 
beyond that narrow strip of sea-water which severed her from 
her husband. 

Until that moment she had resolutely put from her the 
thought of deliberate abandonment ; despite her aunt’s sneers, 
the idea of betrayal had not effected a lodgment in her mind. 
She was a lawful wife temporarily parted from her husband 
by some inexplicable accident, and the sudden exigencies of 
his service. This recognition was the first staggering blow 
to her confidence. The man whom she had supposed to be 
in Gibraltar had plainly spent these past months in England, 
and near to her, so near at Falmouth, at least, that their 
ships had lain weather-bound in the same harbour. That Mr. 
Tighe had intentionally avoided her she could not think, her 
presence aboard the Mary of Yarmouth being known to few, 
but that he had sought her seemed more than dubious ; that 
hot, angry face, startled and repellant, peering down upon her 
from over the Paladin’s hammock-nettings, had spoken to 
her with awakening plainness. 

Meanwhile the blue lane widened, the seas crisped and 
broke between the vessels, the frigate, a tower of white sunlit 
canvas, swept ahead and lessened. Sue, weeping bitterly, 
hurried below. 

Meeting “ broke up ” : the jacks went forward : Furley 
and Chisholm remained. 

The men looked one upon another. Among the row of 
be-capped and be-bonneted heads topping the hammocks, 
Furley had recognised the bridegroom of that improvised 
marriage. That the man had deliberately deserted his wife 
of malice prepense he never had doubted. That he should 
be sailing in the same convoy showed the finger of Providence. 
But the matter was one which concerned the lady, and, less 
directly, himself as her guardian (under God) — an affair in 
which this young Scots officer lad had no claim to intermeddle. 
The skipper spat overside to relieve a deep disgust, shut his 
mouth like a sea-chest, and said nothing. 


A QUAKERS’ MEETING INTERRUPTED 243 

But the other had seen what he had seen, and must naturally 
be conceded some liberty of comment. 

“ Eh, an’ what’ll we mek o’ that, Maister Furley ? ’Twass 
the big, reid Major sure enough ; but what hass the man to 
do with our Mistress Tighe — or she with Major Boyle ? ” 

“ Boyle, d’ye call him, sir ? ” 

“ Assuredly, Boyle, the new major of the Hardenbergs 
sailing in the Paladin with reliefs for the garrison. Oh, I ken 
the shentleman weel ; for why, I haf messed with him at 
Pendennis, and dined at the same table at private houses in 
Falmouth. Ou, and sin him here and there aboot the toun a 
score of times. Ken him ? Ou, ay ! ’’ 

“ Boyle, d’ye call him ? ’’ pursued the master. “ Are we 
talkin’ o’ the same man ? Would he be summut of a woundy, 
gret, red-faced up-standin’ Irishman ? ” 

“ The fery same, ye hae him till a hair ; it is Boyle tae the 
vara life ; but by what name did he pass wi’ ye, sir ? ’’ 
Furley ’s mind moved slowly, but with the sure-footedness 
of a blue-water seaman. The Major’s action and Mrs. Tighe's 
behaviour had aroused in young Chisholm a legitimate curio- 
sity ; unseasonable reticence upon his own part would root in 
this youth’s mind the seeds of injurious suspicion. Besides, 
Chisholm and himself seemed holding the opposite ends of 
the same clue. He would speak out. 

“ He called himself Tighe on the night when he married 
the young ’ooman,” said he : “I was called in to give her away. 
A fullish business, yew’ll be sayin’, but she were an orphan ; 
her folkses all dead ; she lorst in Lunnon ; throwed away, 
in a manner o’ speakin’. He orfered marriage ; there were 
a parson handy (mighty handy). I had my doubts, but 
there ! It seemed better nor nawthing. I’ve got the lines 
: upon me, so far as that goes. 

“ But the feller giv her the slip in Lunnon — cut cable and 
runned. We heered he were for the Rock garrison (I see the 
paint on his sea-chest). I couldn’t do nawthing for the poof 
P lamb at the time meself, being out of a berth, but Providence 
I remembered the gal. I got my first ship, this here, a thing 
|: as I never dreamed on, and found her charter was for the 
Rock with beer (there’s Providence again for ye !), so, naturally, 

I I gives the young ’ooman a passage out, for she be mortal set 
1 on the man ; and who be I to come atween ’em ? ” 

“ He will repudiate the whole thing, sure as deith. Did 
) ye nottis the face of him ? ” 

“ And I thinks so tew, atween yew an’ me ; but he’ve got 
j to repudiate her and me and the paper, I tell ye. Oh, a dam 
clever feller, I ’lows ; but yew’ll see as Providence ’ll be one 
tew many for him yet, bor ! ” In the warmth of feeling at 


244 THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 

the moment, the strong expression passed unnoticed, and a 
curl of the wig was saved. 

“ Humph,” mused the Scot. “ I wuss ye weel, and the 
leddy ; but in my opeenion the man is no’ worth the chasing. 
The lass — the leddy, I would say — is a warl too fine for him, 
Cot tarn him ! — and pless her ! — Amen ! ” 


CHAPTER V 


HOSTES GENTIUM 

Evening and an Atlantic fog lay upon the Straits. The 
convoy, after standing out to sea for some hours, had taken 
advantage of a change of wind to run in for Tarifa Point. 
Had it slipped past its ambuscaders ? If so, it might hope, 
if the wind held, to reach the shelter of Gibraltar that night. 
The wind did not hold ; a clammy south-wester brought them 
in from outside and died away in the Strait, leaving them 
blind in the heart of the fog-bank which had travelled with 

them. Unlit, apprehensive, the multitudinous craft drifted 
with bated breaths, fearful of every sound. 

Hark ! a faint shock shook the curtains of fog. Sue started. 

“ Sunset gun on the Rock,” said Furley. 

“ So near as that ? Then we are Home ! ” 

“ Pray God ye be, my dear ; but we’ve this here night to 
wear through yet. Was ever such a v’yage ? My ‘ depar- 
ture * was Green Bank Steps, and the day afore we sailed 
at that ! For though we lay a’most alongside St. Mawes 
fort and could hear the sentry blow his nose, the fog was that 
thick I never see the last of the place, nor got cross-bearings 
o’ St. Anthony’s nor the Manacles, neyther. . . Serry de 
Sintry * hull-down wuz my first land-fall, and here I be again 
within hearin’ o’ Europa Point gun but nawthin’ wisible. 
’Tis like playing o’ blind-man’s-buff in a barn with gals, with 
Moors for mawthers ! Well, well ! ’tis a muddle with no sin 
in it, like a good few o’ Providence’s doin’s. Pass the word 
for the hands to come aft, Sweetapple, and, if ye please, we’ll 
have no loud talk aboard ontill we be out o’ this.” He perused 
the sea-smother overside until the shuffling of feet at the 
break of the poop told him that his audience was assembled, 

then, having cleared his throat, he leant over the rail addressing 
his ship’s company in simple conversational terms. 

* Sierra di Cintra, the jagged peaks above Lisbon, 


245 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


246 

“ Friends, lookye here ; some on ye don’t know, but some 
on ye does, as how this here’s the reskiest bit o’ sea this v’yage. 

“ ’Tis this way. Here lies we a-drifting, and, onless I be 
out o’ my reckoning, the indraught ’ll take us pretty close 
inshore to the southward before this night’s out. Which 
means we may be boarded by Moors any minute.” 

This dispiriting news was imparted in a husky, unemotional 
monotone, and was received by the Quaker crew in silence. 

The Anointer mate bestowed his quid in a check-pouch well 
outside his starboard lower grinding-teeth before liberating 
his mind. 

“ I s’pose, Mr. Furley, what you be a-drivin’ at is as how 
we’d best fall to prayers, for there ain’t to be no fightin’ ? ” 

“ Thee has about hit it, Sweetapple. Thee knows thy 
agreement wi’ me whenas thee signed on.” 

“ That’s all very well, and I daresay as I truly meant it, 
but the flesh is weak at times, Mr. Furley ; and all I arsts is, 
Is you and they ” — pointing to the hands — “ be I, be the young 
orficer gen’leman, be the young female, to lay down our 
throatses to the knife o’ the fust dirty blackamoor as climbs 
over that there gunwale ? Not likely ! Them handspikes 
lies too handy. Oh, and I’ve sin ye use your fistes some- 
thing pretty in old days, Mr. Furley, and may again.” 

Furley ’s great tanned mask of a face was awork in the 
dusk, and seemed to the watching Sue to be aglow with some 
inner source of illumination. 

“ Zabulon Sweetapple ! Zabulon Sweetapple ! Get thee 
behind me ! for thou savourest not of the things of God. In 
fac’ what thee’ve just bin and uttered come d — d nigh to 
incitements to mutiny ; yes, thou swab ! ” He paused, 
recollecting himself, and deliberately took the last of the 
dilapidated wig from his head, walked to the side, dropped it 
overboard, and returned to his post with bitten lip. But the 
fire still burned within him ; more was coming. 

“ Them’s our pren-ci-pyles, the pren-ci-pyles o’ the S’siety 
o’ Friends, and I mean ’em to perwail aboard this here brig. 
I’ll have peace aboard her. . . peace, says I, with a p, and a e, and 
a e, and a s. Yes, if so be I has to fight the lot on ye for it, 
single-handed. Nor I don’t mean that ezackly, neyther.” 
He paused. “ I can’t take an oath, as thee knows, bein’ forbid, 
but thee can and thinks it no sin, friend Sweetapple, so I’ll 
just trouble thee to give me thy very best davy on the gawspels 
for to lift no blanked finger if Providence permits as we be 
boarded.” 

“ Me to swear not to ’fend myself ? I’lHsee ye jiggered 
fust ! ” growled the other. “ Now, don’t ye' go for to lay a 
finger on me, or ” The mate’s voice was growing shrill, 


iiOSTES GENTIUM 247 

he backed hastily for “ no-man’s-land ” abaft the knight- 
heads, as the skipper swung his great frame lightly down 
from the poop to the main-deck and lurched towards him with 
swift strides. 

Susan’s eyes rounded. Chisholm looked grave. The 
Quaker hands stood stock still, each with his eyes to his 
front, as their captain bore down upon his mate in order of 
battle. None spoke, none interfered. 

'Tis dangerous when lesser natures come 
Betwixt the pass, and fell incensed points 
Of mighty opposites. 

“ Don’t hit me, Furley ; remember yer perfession ! ” cried 
Sweetapple, who had doubled back aft as the skipper went 
forward, and now preferred his appeal from behind the long- 
boat upon the main-hatch. 

“ Hit thee ? ” growled the other with restrained contempt, 
as he strode past the mutineer without a side glance, and 
reaching the rack where the handspikes were secured, hove 
them overside two at a time. 

“ There,” said he, as the last splashed alongside. “The 
Lord’ll send us new toothpicks in His good time. And, harkye, 
my hearties, and Oh,” he groaned, “ I dew sim to wish as how 
Providence had been and sent a proper servant o’ His — One 
of Us (and for ch’ice an Acknowledged Minister), for to give 
His message and put the thing ship-shape, Bristol fashion. 
Howsomever, here goes ! A-hem ! ’tis this way. I’ve bin 
and had an ex-pairience. . . ’Twas like this ; there stood by 
me last night, about seven bells, the angel of the Lord, Whose 
I am and Whom I serve, and He says, says He, ‘ Thomas 
Furley, there’ll be a mossel o’ resk along o’ these here Moors, 
but,’ says He, ‘ stick to thy testimony and Matthew five ; no 
vi’lence, mind ! And behold I give thee thy ship’s company, 
all them as sail with thee, every man jack on’m, man and 
’ooman, craft and all, with her tackle, apparel, provisions, and 
furniture.’ Think o’ that ! Wherefore, my hearties, be of 
good cheer, for I believe God, and there shall not fall an hair 
from the head of any one of ye.” 

The big man delivered his message with pauses and hesita- 
tions, and some hemming, under the stress of so powerful an 
emotion that the sweat gathered upon his brows and his hands 
twitched as they hung loose beside him. By the time he had 
ended he shook from head to foot as one palsied. 

A murmur of assent, with here and there a low Amen, arose 
from the hands as they turned and went wooden-facedly 
forward as though such a performance was all in their day's 
work. 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


248 

Chisholm turned to Sue. “ Mrs. Tighe, this beats me. 
What’ll ye be making o’t yersel’ ? ” 

“ Mr. Chisholm, I am for Mr. Furley, and so must you be. 
Think, we are an unarmed company, and if anything should 
happen — ” she quivered — “the courage of one man, or of two, 
could do nothing but bring trouble upon the rest, and injury 
upon yourself, or — worse,” she added with restrained feeling. 
He heard her teeth chatter in the growing dusk, but could no 
longer see her face. 

This woman was getting very dear to him. He had put the 
thought from him, fought it down, at first from prudential 
reasons ; his position in his service did not warrant his marry- 
ing, his private means were exiguous ; such a union, if it 
were permissible in law, would be ruinous to both. That such 
a marriage as Furley had witnessed would hold good in Scot- 
land the young man believed, but its validity in England he 
more than doubted. Tighe’s, or Boyle’s, public repudiation 
of his wife during the voyage gave the lad food for reflection. 
Obviously the man had married the girl clandestinely, and 
under an assumed name ; the officiating priest might have 
been in orders, more probably was a layman masquerading 
in gown and bands. That she had loved her deceiver once he 
must assume ; her journey in pursuit of him, her agitation 
at seeing him again, all attested as much ; but the lad fancied 
that her love had suffered such a wound as it would hardly 
recover. Neglect, ill-usage, faithlessness, brutality even, 
some women’s hearts can endure, if the embers of affection 
are kept alive by occasional repentance ; but who can forgive 
a public repudiation ? That the action, or inaction, of Tighe, 
or Boyle, amounted to this was evident. A word from him 
to the captain of the Paladin would have reunited them. He 
had held his peace. Day after day since that distressing 
recognition, Susan had watched the topsails of her husband's 
ship ; surely he would relent, would come for her — or to her. 
He had still shunned her ; she felt herself abandoned indeed, 
deserted in very truth, and her love lay a-dying. 

Chisholm, with the keen vision of a lover, saw all this — saw 
too that, torn as it was by her wrongs, there was as yet no 
room for himself in this woman’s heart ; sore and strained 
and bruised it was, but still faintly beating time to the music 
it had learnt from its unworthy lord. Her plastic imagination 
had been deeply impressed. The first love of a girl is a tre- 
mendous passion. Woe to her who trusts unwisely, and 
deeper woe to him who proves himself unworthy of the trust ; 
surely it were better for him that a great millstone were hanged 
about his neck and that he were drowned in the depths of the 
sea. 


HOSTES GENTIUM 


249 

For the present, and for long to come, poor Sue’s standards 
of manhood were fixed by memories of her splendid, truculent, 
ruffian husband. His voice rung in her ear in dreams, his 
step, his hand, his manner, the height and weight and virile 
presence of him still held her ; no other man appealed to her 
as yet as a possible substitute or successor. The very idea 
would have aroused all her noblest instincts in opposition. 

Chisholm, an inexperienced lad in matters of the heart, 
shy and diffident where Boyle would have been prompt and 
secure of his position, divined so much and bided his time. 
What he could do was done : unobtrusive hourly offerings of 
such assistance as a man may tender to the woman who is 
his fellow-prisoner upon shipboard. He had already learnt 
to watch for her occasions, and knew, having grown unselfishly 
wise in love’s lore, how to efface himself, and when to concede 
to her inward trouble the solitude it craved. His reticence 
won him as much as his speech. From these abstentions, 
after a long day of rolling calm, on which the poor girl’s misery 
had grown and grown, until only an hour’s weeping in the 
cabin could render her life endurable to her for another night — 
after such a spell of silence and aloofness the young people 
would seek one another’s society with fresh zest. The calm 
had broken, and last night’s tears dried, the sun of a southern 
morning would be warm upon the deck-planks ; the ship, 
under reefed topsails beating through blue water that broke 
inboard at whiles, and a company of clamorous gulls would be 
wheeling and crying about her. Then ’twas sweet to be alive 
after all, and good, as Sue found, to have a strong and at- 
tentive cavalier to arrange her seat and wraps for her on so 
lively a craft. 

Were those days over for ever ? Was all to end here ? 
Chisholm realised the precariousness of the ship’s position 
and the possibilities of the night. A shift of wind, the holding 
of this calm, the indraught, the lifting of this fog-curtain, 
a dozen mischances against which seamanship was powerless, 
might place this whole ship’s company, and himself, and — 
worst of all, this lady, in the slave-pen. He might see within 
the week his fellow-travellers manacled, handled, appraised 
by dirty Moors, bid for and sold apart ; this might be his 
own fate. But what of Mistress Tighe’s ? Oh, Lord ! Lord ! 
He cried dumbly for help to the Unseen, and went apart from 
the lady to grind his teeth in helpless perplexity, knowing 
full well that she had spoken but the bare truth, and that, 
come what may, there must be no fighting. 

Darkness fell swiftly upon the fog-bound fleet. Upon the 
Mary of Yarmouth all hands kept the deck, conversing with 
lowered voices or listening for the dip of oars. All was dark 


250 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


on board ; from small distant sounds, men were sensible of 
the neighbourhood of other craft. 

Midnight passed, no bell was struck, the hour-glass had 
been let run down, the dark hours were thinning out, and still 
the fog held. Never was sea more still ; the brig rolled slightly 
at times, but for an hour on end not a sheaf creaked. Thrice 
had the lead been hove in silence and with extreme precaution, 
but bottom had not been found at a hundred and fifty fathoms. 
There was no bringing a ship up in such soundings. 

Sue, wrapped warmly in her cloak, dozed beside the bin- 
nacle, but awaked with a sense of something novel and im- 
pending. The night-long, unnatural dumbness of the sea 
had yielded to a soft, recurrent lapsing whisper, the sounds of 
small waves that mounted and slid away from something 
firmer than one another’s sleek shoulders. 

A grayness gathered above the trucks, or where the trucks 
should have been, and from this gray ness came down the 
short yapping barks of a bird circling overhead. 

Furley stiffened at the sound like a pointer upon a scent ; 
he knew that this was an unfamiliar cry, but the sound con- 
veyed no definite meaning to him. Seamen, unless their fear 
of the supernatural is aroused, are curiously incurious as to 
strange sights and sounds at sea ; whatever inquisitiveness 
he may possess or display is snubbed out of a lad during his 
apprenticeship by duller elders. 

But to one man on board these bird-notes spoke clearly of 
cliffs and splintered pinnacles. “ Sheabhag — not a doot on’t. 
Wull ye pairmet me a meenut, Mistress Tighe ? ” asked 
Chisholm, and had gripped the ratlins before the lady knew 
that he had left her. Up and up went he with the deliberate, 
elastic energy of the mountaineer turned seaman ; ’twas not 
his first essay ; he made light of the futtock-shrouds, and 
held upon his way through layers of white gauze which thinned 
and brightened above him as he climbed, until, with his feet 
upon the cross-trees, he found his head above the fog, blinking, 
gaping upon a sight that caught his breath. A floor of cloud, 
white and opaque as wool, extended as far as his eye could 
reach, pierced here and there in the distance by the loftier 
spars of the convoy, becalmed and heading to every point of 
the compass. But close at hand, and menacingly near, was 
the rocky summit of a headland or islet, he knew not which, 
backed up by stony heights ending in a mountain, Apes’ 
Hill, in short, that southern pillar of Hercules, which looms 
up over against its fellow, the warrior Rock, across the Strait. 
“ Phew ! but we’re close in ! ” whispered the lad, wincing 
at a sudden onslaught of the falcon, whose timely warning 
had aroused his vigilance. The bird, a swooping vision of 


HOSTES GENTIUM 


251 


white bosom and blue back, swept open-beaked past his ear 
j with blazing eyes ; the rocky ledges, her eyrie whence she had 
sprung in jealous alarm at the intrusion of the ship’s top- 
masts, rang to her clamour. “ I thank ye, kindly, ma bonnie 
bird ; ’tis you. and not our fine lookout, that have saved a 
strand — if it be saved.” 

“Maister Furley ! on deck there!” he hailed. “We’re 
taking the groond ! ” His hail seemed to rebound from the 
floor of mist ; the cliff gave back his voice, but no answer 
came from below. He wondered. 

One, and as a seaman would have known, an important 
feature of the scene, Chisholm overlooked ; he only recalled 
afterward the strong, gray strands of cloud which bound the 
lower hills, and how these were lifted^in an arch to the south- 
west as though for the passage of some Presence. He de- 
scended into the fog below him with long strides, his mind 
full of the landfall ; Furley would get the boat off the main- 
hatch, he would lower her and tow off ; he, the lad, would 
volunteer for an oar — he had pulled many an oar on Shin. 
The running-gear dripped and pattered around him as he 
climbed ; he heard voices below him, and Mr. Sweetapple’s 
raised for a moment and then hushed, but thought nothing 
of it, and stepped from the rail to the deck into the arms 
of a couple of Moors ! The ship was taken ! 

The rascals’ boat was fast on the starboard side (he had 
used the port shrouds). His captors felt him for arms. Oh, 
the poignant misery of that moment ! They were extra- 
ordinarily young, mere boys ; a dozen like them, under the 
command of an older man, an evil-visaged blackamoor, had 
mustered the ship’s company in the waist and were searching 
them ; others were below. The capture had been effected 
in such silence, and was being consummated with such haste, 
that any one could see that the thieves were in fear of inter- 
ruption. This was no boat’s crew from a felucca, but the 
sweepings of the nearest village under its Sheik, tempted by 
the visible proximity of a ship which had drifted inshore 
during the night. They could not hope to make prize of her 
in due form, to plunder her at their leisure, or to carry her 
into port, for they were no seamen, and knew nothing of her 
navigation, nor, if the fog lifted — and it might lift with sun- 
rise — could they hope for an hour’s grace from the Paladin's 
launch and landing parties. No, they would beach her, please 
Allah, and get her company to the back of the hills as fast 
as they could be driven. 

The poor lad’s first thought was for Mistress Tighe. The 
fog thinned for a moment, he saw her stand against the 
starboard bulwarks between the captain and the mate, whose 


252 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


face was working, his shoulders rising and falling. “ They'll 
knife us all ! ” he bleated. Furley, himself wholly collected, 
anticipated some ill-judged outbreak. “ Where is that faith 
o’ thine, friend Sweetapple ? ’Tis a Falmouth Harbour 
faith, a Wapping faith, I doubts,” he growled, clenching his 
eyes under an expanse of netted forehead in a spasm of in- 
ward prayer. They unclosed as from sleep, steady and calm, 
and met Chisholm’s desperate, mute appeal across the deck. 
£ - Lord, open Thou the eyes of this young man ! The navies 
of the Lord lie thick about us, my lad ! ” 

A young Moor looked hard upon Susan, grinned, and 
forced up her chin with a brown finger. Her faith flickered. 
“ Oh, Mr. Furley, I’d rather ye killed me ; yes, than let the 
savages get me ! Indeed, I could die now ! ” She sank upon 
her knees, burying her white, tortured countenance in the 
sea-frock of her friend, who laid a gnarled brown hand upon 
her head in fatherly reassurance. “ Kill thee ? nay, there 
shall not an hair of thee fall ! I have His word for it. Nay, 
* I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord ’ ! ” 

The Anointer snorted impatiently, and clenched his fists 
in impotent fury. “ Belay all that, ye swab,” growled his 
skipper in his ear ; “ I tell ye the Lord’ll be strikin’ a blow 
for us d’reckly ! ” 

As he spoke, the reis had him by the windpipe, flashing a 

long knife before his eyes. “ I shall not d, ” gurgled the 

captive, purpling, but governing his hands and rigid in his 
extremity. 

41 Inshallah,” muttered the ruffian dubiously, relaxing the 
cruelty of his grip, and then, as an afterthought, slashing 
the bald crown across with the back of the knife ; no heavy 
cut, just a hint as from master to slave for the latter to hold 
his tongue. Blood ran down the skipper’s temples and 
behind his ears : he raised his head to clear his eyes. “ Into 
Thy hands, O Lord ! ” he breathed. The Anointer watched 
him from beneath eyelids which quivered ; the Quaker crew 
stood as pale and still as statuary. Sue felt a drop of blood 
fall upon her hand and glanced up, shuddered strongly, but 
held in the shriek ; some flicker of faith in Furley remained 
with her. 

How long did this last ? Chisholm and she could never 
agree upon this point. Moments of peril are very long 
moments : one sees so much, hears so much, and feels more 
still ; one hopes, regrets, devises, despairs, fast and desperately, 
all within a minute. 

The youth forgot his own fate in the frightful possibilities 
confronting the woman whom he had learned to love. Once 
their eyes met across the deck, and her pitiful attempt at a 


HOSTES GENTIUM 


253 

smile almost drove him beyond his promise. He dared not 
risk a second glance, and compelled himself to watch that 
row of rigid Quaker faces. The great, brave visage of the 
captain, streaked with blood though it were, was an inspiration 
to the youth, it seemed informed with an expectation which 
was equivalent to certitude. A gleam of sunlight seemed to 
rest upon it although the fog was as thick as ever. The reis 
was sorting his first gang of prisoners, marshalling them 
towards the boat alongside ; slavery had already begun ; 
Furley seemed to heave a load off his chest and smiled. 
What had happened ? Nothing. What then was about to 
happen ? A sheaf creaked, a wet brace tautened, a shower 
of heavy fog-dew fell, a topsail shook the water from the 
torpid folds that had been gathering it all night : that was all. 
Then, sudden as the passage of a shoal of affrighted fish, the 
dumb sea alongside hissed to a passing flaw, the walls of fog 
rocked, the network of rigging aloft sent down the weird 
whine of strained cordage, the sails filled with a clap, every- 
, thing was moving underfoot and overhead, the air was thick 
with voices. The masts trembled, for the ship was caught, 
but had no way upon her and failed to respond. Timbers 
groaned, standing rigging and running gear, shroud and 
halliard, brace and sheet, sheaf and tackle gave tongue 
according to its appointed note. And above all and through 
all, with the buffet of something alive and sentient and solid, 
and a voice of terror, came the butt-end of the wind. 

Over careened the brig, her starboard-rail rising, her port 
scuppers sinking away underfoot, whilst the white squall, 
which had struck her, screamed like a wounded horse and 
rolled the torn blanket of fog into bales, which swayed hither 
and thither as the ship fell away to leeward, her gear flying 
in bights, adrift, unsteered, in danger of capsize. 

“ Slack away top’sl halliards ! Let all fly! ’* bawled 
Furley, leaping to command. In one stride he was at the 
starboard poop-ladder. The blubber-lipped reis, galled at 
the loss of his booty, cutting at, but missing him as he passed. 
Chisholm lost sight of him, the lad was filled with an intense 
anxiety to be of service, and to do the right thing ; the 
seconds seemed endless, the small crowded main-deck was 
full of staggering, clutching, over-balanced forms ; the hands 
were busy at the cleats ; the Moors who had hold of him 
dropped his arms, and scrambled whimpering up the steeply 
canted deck to where their lfeader and his men were clambering 
over one another to regain their boat. They reached it, cast 
adrift, and were tossing astern and out of sight before their 
friends below could reach the deck. 

But Chisholm had no thought for their panic ; Sue, at the 


254 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


end of her fortitude, had come sliding down the deck into his 
hands, and he must get her to safety. 

It was during these crammed and throbbing moments that 
the Mary of Yarmouth , emerging from the fog, drove close 
under the stern of H.M.S. Snorter, was recognised and hailed, 
but returned no hail, and next instant was lost again. Furley 
reached the tiller and set his hand to the tackles, but found 
the mate at his side. “ My trick, Sweetapple — get forrard — 
get sail off her ! ” 

“ Bos’n forrard — hands knows their work,” rapped the 
other, gripping the port tackle resolutely. “ This be a two- 
man trick, Furley, wi’ a follerin’ sea helium’ll kick some- 
thin’ crool ; if she broaches, ’tis all up ! ” 

Both men were shouting, but their voices sounded weak 
and pithless in the turmoil. Furley knew that his mate 
spoke truly, and forbore his point. The men faced one 
another, straddling and straining with feet braced against 
such purchases as they could reach. Twice in the first three 
minutes they were pooped by waves as fierce as white wolves, 
so quickly and so dangerously was the sea getting up, but 
they had got the ship before the wind. They knew that 
the topmasts were bending, could hear the jar when the 
yards came down upon the slings, and the thunder of loosened 
canvas struggling against the weight of a whole watch upon 
the clews, and knew by the feel of it — for little was to be 
seen, the sea-roke driving with them as they drove — that sail 
was being reduced. 

The gale itself lent a hand, blowing the main-topsail out 
of its bolt-ropes with the sounds of an irregular volley of 
musketry. Chisholm saw the rags flit over the crest of a 
wave like a covey of ptarmigan down the sides of Ben 
More. 

“ Please Providence her fore-top-s’l ’ll goo tew ! ” prayed 
Furley. “ Ah, there ’t goo ! ” as the second great sail 
ripped, crackled, and exploded. The little craft, no longer 
overpressed, took her work more easily, rose to the seas 
instead of burying her nose in them. Her waist was now 
sometimes free from water. Her steersmen could breathe. 

“ Now she’ll about dew,” panted the skipper, “if so be 
as any blame craft ain’t makin’ a board acrost us. Keep her 
before it, Sweetapple ; once she broaches-tew the sticks ’ll goo. 

No’east by east’s the course. Now ” The set of his jaw 

relaxed for the first time since the squall had struck them 
and a glow of triumph suffused his features. “ Now, mate, 
did ye iver ? I arsts ye fair ? Merrycles o’ mercies ! Dint 
I tell ye Providence ’ud strike a blow ? ” 

“ Humph,” growled the Anointer grudgingly, his eye 


HOSTES GENTIUM 


255 


upon liis skipper’s bare, streaming noddle, whereon a big 
bruise, a little blood, and more spindrift made a butcherly 
show, “ I did ketch summut about hairs and heads.” 

“ And mine’s bald, soo the Lord’s angel hev kep his word,” 
countered the other, scoring. “An’ not a hair o’ your wig’s 
adrift, anyways.” 


CHAPTER VI 


THE FALLING AWAY OF THOMAS FURLEY 

The Mediterranean, popularly supposed the bluest of seas, 
can upon occasion be black as very ink. This was its aspect 
late in the afternoon, when, the sou’-westerly gale having 
blown itself out, the wind had veered round to the north. 
Pinchingly cold it blew from the sierra which showed at 
times above the yellow topsails of a fleet of clouds sailing 
slow in close order like ships in line of battle. Overhead 
was a roof of dun scud, whence hail fell at intervals as the 
two weathers fought above the sea, and beneath it the Mary 
of Yarmouth jogged south again after her morning’s work. 
Grumbling and croaking to herself she went on, hardly back 
into her self-respect. So goes a plump, middle-aged dame 
who has been chased by hooligans and can neither forget nor 
forgive. 

A slow ship and a wet ship she was that watch, for though 
the wind was now abaft the beam, she met the full run of the 
sea, and her deck was ever awash. The glossy darkness of the 
great, whale-backed rollers laced with loops and stitcheries 
of white and yellow foam, met the bluff bows of the little 
craft with sounding thumps, and seemed disposed to try 
their luck at times, throwing boarding-parties upon her 
fo’ksle to tumble in cascades into her waist, and wash as far 
aft as her main-hatch. 

Out of the wind and the worst of the weather beneath the 
break of the poop sate the prisoners, seven young Moors. 
They were thinly clad in the long chemise that is the working 
dress of their race ; cold they were, albeit the Quaker crew 
had lent them their coats and a sail to huddle under ; de- 
pressed, too, by seven hours of sickness and the uncertainty 
of their prospect. This adventure had turned out ill for 
them ; they expected no mercy. Young Chisholm had 
taken their weapons from them during the gale, but, had 
they been armed, there was no fight in them. It was in this 

256 


THE FALLING AWAY OF THOMAS FURLEY 257 

plight that Sweetapple found them when he came upon 
deck after a needed spell off, to relieve the master, who had 
worked a double watch. 

He blinked at the stinging breeze, glanced aloft at the 
drawing sails, down at the sloppy deck, overside at the 
lumpy water, marbled by the leavings of the gale, and nodded 
tight-lipped greeting to his chief. 

“ And what be we to do with these here blackamoors ? ” 
he asked. The strangers were almost as fair as Englishmen, 
but to the mate blackamoors they should be — the wretches 
had attacked without provocation, had hustled and frightened 
him ; Sweetapple was a part of the ship. 

<! I be a-comin’ to my own inclusion as to that,” replied 
the skipper guardedly. The mate ran on : 

“We could have made a nicetish bit out on ’em in Algeciras 
but for these here war troubles. That there Mustee in the 
middle be wuth money ; and that little Fino Mustee next 
him. That’s a Terceroon de Indies, I take it — a gret up- 
standin’ chap — him by the ladder ; cheap at twenty pound — 
not a Sambo among the lot. Ah ! they’d fetch a pretty 
penny in Lisbon if so be we could get there wi’out deenger 
o’ bein’ took and sold ourselves. Best, p’raps, to knock 
’em over the head and ha’ done.” 

“ Zabulon Sweetapple,” growled Furley, “ seems to me 
as thee be in the gall o’ bitterness. Barrin’ my own, there 
shall be no head knocked aboard my ship this v’yge. Wot 
says scriptur, Second o’ Kings, six, twenty-two ? ‘ Wouldst 
thou smite them whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword 
and thy bow?’ How much less the Lord’s captives ? ” 

“ Can’t see as the cases be similar,” rejoined Sweetapple, 
shutting his eyes and wagging an obstinate head. 

“ They been’t, I owns,” admitted Furley, “ and soo, arter 
tamin’ things over, I be come to this, tew drop ’em quietly 
overside.” 

This proposal, so astonishing in the mouth of a Quaker, 
was made without the least inflection of tone. The Suffolk 
drawl was carried through to its high terminal whine. Nor 
did the speaker’s eye bewray him, nor the form of his face : 
only at the portal of lips softly held ajar, a pink and healthy 
tongue-tip showed for an instant and was withdrawn again. 

Sweetapple opened his eyes, glanced up in doubt, but was 
too late for the show and was reassured. 

“ That’s sensible ; now you’re talkin’. There be suthin* 
in you Quakers arter all ! ” 

“ ’Nough o’ that, friend ! ” growled the other, “ I be free 
to tell thee thy tongue’s tew long by half. Once or twicst 
durin’ the heavy weather if I'd a-bin another sort 0* man nor 

1 7 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


25S 

what I be, and hadn’t a-had to hang on that there tiller-fall, 
I'd a-jetched yew a b — dy whisk o' the ear ! ” 

“ Stiddy, Mister Furley,” cried Sweetapple, backing away. 
“ I meant no offence, I’m agreein’ with ye. Overside’s the 
place for ’em, not but what my plan’s quicker and quieter. 
They’ll holler a bit naterally, and they’ll be apt to lay hold 
on things. And there’s the young female’s feelin’s to 
consider.” 

“ I’ll consider ’em when the time comes, Friend Sweet- 
apple ; meanwhile, thee’ll jes’ leave the job tew me, will 
thee ? ” 

This the Anointer promised the more readily that whilst 
bearing an Englishman’s grudge against foreigners in general, 
and blackamoors in particular, he had no relish for mis- 
handling these unfortunates, and more than doubted if any 
man among the foremast jacks would lend him a finger. 

“ Who’s bin feedin’ ’em ? ” he asked testily, detecting 
crumbs. “ Mistress Tighe ? tut ! tut ! this here tender- 
heartedness is all werry well, but when it comes to victualling 

the dyin’, in a figure — criminals left for death ” 

“ I dew sim tew remember summut about feedin’ one’s 
enemies, tew,” hazarded Furley vaguely. 

“ Ah, yah; that’s the letter, as you Quakers is so fond on: 
now, we Anointers walk in the sperrit, Mr. Furley, and when 

it comes to a pack of thieves ” 

” Dyin’ thieves,” dryly interposed the skipper, whose 
scriptural references were at times allusive, and at others 
inconveniently textual. “ And, now I think on’t, Sweet- 
apple, ain’t there somewheres a passage about the Master 
and a dyin’ thief ? Yah — oop ! ” he yawned, perceiving 
Sweetapple’s disposition to drop the subject, and began to 
strip his sea-coat. “We pumped till she sucked at eight 
bells, but she laboured and strained a bit in that weather ; 
try again later, and call me if there be a shift o’ wind. 
Sou’west ’s her course. Here, yellow boy, put that on thy 
back ontill I ask thee for it ” ; he laid his coat over the 
shoulders of a shivering Moor. With one foot down the 
waist-ladder, he turned to where the mate stood grimly 
contemplating the prisoners. “ And when that droppin’ 
overside comes, mebbe I’ll be wantin’ thee to lend a hand.” 

“ Sartainly, I’ll do it cheerful,” responded Sweetapple, 
with perhaps less alacrity than his words warranted. 


“ Wind’s fell light ; weather clearin’, and land’s in sight 
from masthead, Mr. Furley.” 

The skipper opened his eyes with a grunt. 


THE FALLING AWAY OF THOMAS FURLEY 259 

“ And we > that’s myself and the fo’mast hands, ’d like to 
know what course you’ll be layin’.” 

The skipper threw a leg over the side of his bunk and sat up. 

“ * Deck directly,” said he. “Heave the lead and make 
ready long-boat for lowerin’.” 

Sweetapple’s eyes were brimful of questions, to which the 
master’s vouchsafed but one answer, “ On deck ! ” As the 
panel slid -to behind him, Furley arose and stood with bent 
head and folded hands. 

“ Lord,” growled he in a deep husky bass, “I be a werry 
common man, and You’ve bin and laid a most oncommon 
course. . . . 

“I be that afeared . . . that afeared ... as I can’t 
sca’cely carry on.” 

He stood thus for a full minute, with tightly closed eyes 
awaiting the dawning of some inner light. It would seem 
that none came. With a sigh he took a Bible from a locker 
and opened at random : a brown, thumbed psalm lay beneath 
his fingernail : 

“ Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night , nor the arrow 
that flieth by day. The Lord shall be thy shield and buckler.” 

He started. “ ’Twarn’t azackly fair. I be soo fond o’ that 
bit ’twere sort o’ bound tew oopen jes’ there. Howsomever ! ” 
He stooped, drew on his sea-boots and took the deck. 

It was a sparkling morning with a light breeze from the 
north. The coast-line, yellow beach, and blue . rocks, lay 
clear under the leech of the foresail not six miles distant. 
The ship was running free, and would be well inshore under 
an hour. 

The watch was at work upon the boat, a heavy clinker- 
built tub that lay upon the spare booms over the main-hatch. 
To get her out and lower overside would need all hands at the 
tackles. The men worked without heart, and with their 
eyes elsewhere, and had a good deal to say, though saying it 
under their breaths. Anon the covering-cloth was off, and all 
the miscellaneous raffle turned out which seamen habitually 
pack into a boat which, if wanted at all, will probably be 
wanted in haste ; the boat lay with her lashings cast loose, 
ready for hoisting out of her chocks. A dozen times the eyes 
of the men had turned to their skipper, with mute or muttered 
remonstrance. Impassively he overlooked their work from 
the rail at the break of the poop. Now, since the land lay 
but two miles ahead, and still he held on, the loose discipline 
of the merchant jack, strained over-taut, gave sign of parting. 
The hands below turned out in ones and twos, and conferred 
with the watch on duty. Finally the whole ship’s company. 


26 o 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


even to the cook and the boy, came aft slowly, and with 
dragging feet and some pushing of the best men to the front. 
The bos’n nudged Sweetapple, the latter spoke. 

“ Yer parding, Mr. Furley, but we’ve got summut to arst 
ye. What be we a-doin’ in here ? ’Tain’t our natural 
course. Lee shore ’t be, and failin’ wind. That there’s 
Barbary — Riff coast, ain’t it ? ’* Furley nodded. “ Where 
these here blackamoors come from ” 

“ That’s so,” interposed the skipper, “ and where, if Pro- 
vidence be agreeable, they’ve got tew goo back tew. As 
Christ’n men us can’t do no less than see ’em safe home again.” 

The speaker’s mouth closed tight upon it as the lid of a 
locker, but fifteen pairs of lips fell apart in sheer astonishment. 
This was carrying principles beyond all reasonable limits. 
Sweetapple found his voice, high and querulous, 

“ Di’n’t you promise me you’d put ’em overside ? ” 

“ An’ dint yew promise tew lend a hand ? ” 

“ I may ha’ done, but ” 

“ Tha’s all right then ; evident we shall get on swimmin’, 
’cause that’s our very next job, yewrs and mine, friend 
Sweetapple. We’ll jes’ lower that there boat, put th’ enemy 
abroad, pull into fleet water and put 'em overside .” 

“ But — but — I reckoned ” stammered the Anointer 

reddening. 

“ N’ mind what yew reckoned ; what yew had in that 
black onchristian heart o’ yourn was vi’lence, Zabulon, n’more, 
n’less. But, praise Gawd, Providence hev bin one tew many 
for ye. Luff, there ! ” 

The brig rounded-to as the helmsman spilt the wind out 
of her two big square-sails. The watch backed the foreyard 
and laid the ship to. The long-boat took the water kindly. 

“ Four hands for the oars,” said Furley. “ Who’ll speak 
first ? What, none on ye ? Come, Friend Zabulon, seems as 
if thee and me ” 

“ Not me, Mr. Furley ; I’ve a wife at New Cross.” 

“ She’ll take to thee none the worse for thy doing the 
Lord’s will for once instead o’ pratin’ about it. Howsomever, 
if thee won’t, thee won’t ; but one thing thee shall do, for ye 
sets store by Scripture, ye ’Nointers — bag o’ bread here — 
and I’d have thee turn up Second Kings, six, twenty-two 
again, end o’ the passage : * Set wittles before them, and let 
hem goo unto their master .’ ” 

“That’ll be the devil, sure-ly ; for if he don’t get sech swine 
as these here, I don’t see no good in havin’ a devil at all,” 
and Zabulon Sweetapple, having delivered his soul, made it 
plain that he did not feel called to make one of that boat’s 
crew. 


THE FALLING AWAY OF THOMAS FURLEY 261 


“ Keep the deck, then, ye onforgiving swab, ontill I be back 
again. What ? is the Lord’s arm shortened ? . . . Thee, 
Sam’mle ? . . . Thee, Abraham ? . . . There ! . . I dew sim 
to fare right asheemed on ye,” said the skipper, the East 
Anglian twang deepening as his anger grew ; “ Whooy, if ye’d 
only let him, that there rawskle booy ’d come along o’ me. 
Wouldn’t thee, Titus ? * l 

But the person thus singled out for an honourable service 
to which he felt himself unequal, reddened, wriggled, and at 
a second appeal, blubbered aloud : 

“ ’Scuse me, sir — ub — but I don’t want they niggers for 
to ketch me — ow ! ” 

“ What’s the odds to thee where thee lives who’ve got ne’er 
a fambly to keep ? ” 

“ Please, sir, I couldn’t nohow stand the grub, and they do 
say as there’s a mort o’ rope’s-end in Algiers, and noo marryin ’ 
neither — ow ! ” Tears fell fast. Furley gnawed his lip. Was 
there, or was there not a small laugh behind him, swift and 
sweet ? Chisholm’s hand was upon his sleeve (Sue’s had 
lain upon the lad’s a moment earlier). 

“ I am with ye, Maister Furley ; I can pull some.” 

“ And I can steer,” added Mistress Tighe, a vision of radiant 
courage, her eyes shining like stars under gloriously uplifted 
brows. 

“ Yew ? and Yew ? ” stuttered the skipper, surprised 
beyond reach of his painfully acquired pronouns, “ Good for 
iver ! . . . Looky here, ‘ Out o’ the mouths o’ babes and 
sucklings hath He ordained praise ! ’ Yes, us three ’ll take 
the job on, and shame the devil and the Anointers.” 

He was overside whilst speaking, Chisholm followed ; the 
girl sprang upon a water-cask, and was into the main-chains 
in a moment. Forgetful of self, there she stood awaiting the 
movement of the boat beneath her : one little hand grasped a 
shroud, its fellow restrained her frocks. Never had Chisholm 
seen her to better advantage : his heart came high in his throat 
at sight of such gallant grace. The boat lifted ; he threw up 
his hands ; she stepped off into the air smiling, and for the second 
time he had her in his arms. Gravely sweeping her skirts 
aside, she seated herself in the stern-sheets and shipped the 
tiller. 

’Twas too much for one of the crew, the uncouthest of the 
batch. “ Put the gal aboard again, skipper. Swap-me-bob, 
I’ll sign on for’t, hit or miss.” 

Furley ignored this belated repentance ; his heart was hot 
within him ; that Friends, men of his choice, those in whom 
he had trusted should fail him, should give no credence to the 
heavenly vision which had borne him up and was still bearing, 


262 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


was bitter. What he withheld, those well-conceived and 
richly decorated denunciations which he did not utter — only 
the Recording Angel, who scored them to his credit, knows. 
With congested features, hot eye, and rigid upper lip, he bade 
Sweetapple pass down to him the biggest of the Moors. The 
creature came passively, and was seated upon the bottom- 
boards forward, with his back to the stem. The next was set 
upon his lap, and the rest, in turn, each upon the knees of the 
man behind him, and that bag of ship-bread laid across the 
legs of the last, holding all down. 

Furley having applied to the question of stowage what a 
subsequent pietist has described as sanctified common sense, 
surveyed his cargo. 

“ Twon’t shift, I reckons, though mortal down-by-the- 
head. Anyhow, ’tis a short v’yage, and we be in Providence’s 
hands.” 

He spat upon his own. “ Cast off,” said he, and stepped 
the mast, hauled up the lug, belayed the halliard, and sate 
him down aft, sheet in hand. “ Shove her off, Mr. Chisholm.” 

The lug flapped and filled, the boat heeled slightly and 
gathered way ; they were off. Was ever such cruise under- 
taken by christened men ? 

“ Good-bye, skipper ! Good-bye, sir ! Good-bye, madam ! ” 
cried the hands. The boy blubbered aloud. 

“ Ha’e the poltroons gi’en us ower already ? ” asked young 
Chisholm crossly, his own heart dark with doubts as to the 
issue of this adventure for the lady and himself. 

“ Don’t blame ’em, sir,” said Furley mildly — he had 
recovered his temper — “ they hain’t had my expairiences, 
ye see.” 

Fell a breathing silence. The three servants of duty aft 
watched the perspective of faces, expressionless and inscrutably 
alien, and as alike as sheep. What would happen when these 
creatures found themselves at home, and their unarmed 
captors in their power ? 

Meanwhile the wind served, the coastline opened, salient 
features detaching themselves. With sapphire water beneath 
her, and darting fish, the boat ran in through a gap in an 
outlying reef, opening natural harbourage beyond, smooth 
water rippling over a bottom of yellow sand, ringed by a 
curving bight of towans backed by bosky hills. A silent place, 
sunlit and lonely, its one sign of human occupation a white- 
walled kubba, the ruined shrine of some Moorish saint. 

Sue found the submissiveness of their passengers unnatural 
and ominous, nor had it occurred to either of the men that the 
rascals had lost their reckoning during the gale, and now 
supposed, if their fatalism permitted them to suppose any- 


THE FALLING AWAY OF THOMAS FURLEY 263 

thing, that this landfall was some country of the Giaours, 
where their slavery would now begin. Seated as they were, 
with faces seaward and eyes below the level of the gunwale, 
they saw nothing of the coast until the water having shoaled 
to half a fathom, Furley lowered the sail and, stepping for- 
ward, swung the bread off the legs of the nearest Moor and 
bade him arise. 

“ I be sarving thee main well, young man,” said he, with 
touching confidence that he was being understood. “ And 
trusts thee’re sensible of the same. Pay it back, pressed 
down and runnin’ over tew some pore Christian soul in Barbary, 
where thee be free to goo now as soon as thee likes. Up and 
off wi’ thee — sho ! ” 

He spoke as if driving fowls from a flower garden ; but, 
as the man addressed failed to respond, put forth a massive 
hand, and gently put him overside into the water where the 
creature stood waist-deep and gaping, holding to the gunwale. 

“ There, git along, bor, and be a good chap for the rest o’ 
thy nateral life.” The man waded shoreward, going as if 
in a dream. Two others followed passively. 

Then, all suddenly, came danger. The fourth, an older and 
grimmer man, upon gaining his feet, glanced behind him and 
saw his three fellows stand at the tide’s edge free men ; saw 
too, and recognised the kubba and knew his bearings. With 
joyous outcry he swung his arms and began to gabble to the 
three seated figures, who gabbled in return, and strove to free 
their feet. The boat rolled awkwardly, while the freedmen: 
upon the beach uttered cries and began to return. The 
affair might yet have gone ill. Furley took it all in : stooping, 
he took the tiller from Sue’s hand, and drew it from the 
rudder. “ I be main sorry, young feller,” he said, “ but 
seemin’ly thee’ve no manners, and soo long as I commands 
I must and will have dissyplyne .” Crack ! the oak-staff 
descended upon the shaven crown of the mutineer, who 
promptly sate him down again. 

The skipper regarded him sternly. “Yew knows how to 
’have yewrself, and yew shall ’have yewrself soo long’s yew 
be abroad o’ my ship,” he said, fully persuaded (as so many 
of our countrymen would seem to be) that a foreigner’s 
preference for his own tongue is largely obstinacy, and that 
he can, if he chooses, comprehend English spoken slowly and 
distinctly. The charm worked, the beaten man gazed stolidly 
to his front, refraining even from comforting his head, and at 
the end of a long minute, to the endurance of which Sue con- 
tributed a priceless silence, Furley gave signal, and the fellow 
stepped over into the water. “ Salaam,” said he, and passes out 
of our story. His mates followed, the last laden with the 


THE CHANCES OF THE SEA 


264 

bag of bread. Then was the lightened boat put about, the 
mast unstepped, oars run out, and they headed for the brig. 
All drew lighter breath, the tightness was gone, and the 
constriction across the brows, yet Furley’s face was grave, 
‘ ‘ I shou’n’t a-hit him. ’Twere needful for dissy-plyne, mebbe, 
but it sorter spiles the job.” 

‘‘You beat Titus last week for swearing, sir,” said Sue, 
by way of administering comfort. “ Let us call this foreigner 
a boy ; he is but that at heart.” 

“ The booy ? ” growled Furley. “ It done him good. . . 
He wants it. . . . And thee begged him off, Susan ; thee 
mainly does when I whops him.” Susan smiled, but — as her 
friend’s face did not clear — “ I doubt if Mr. Sweetapple can 
have seen it, even through the glass,” she remarked, as if to 
herself. The skipper brightened. 


BOOK VI 
CRISIS 


CHAPTER I 

GIBRALTAR 

M OST of us can picture Gibraltar, its western aspect at 
least, the town side. We know it in Stanfield’s oils, 
in line-engraving, in photograph and the picture post-card — 
the long, white curtain-wall between the blue bay and the 
climbing streets behind, the gray-green rock over all seamed 
with traverses and emplacements screened by dwarf palm 
and scrub ; the “ Queen of Spain’s Handkerchief ” floating 
above its topmost point. 

If you were ever “ up the Straits,” or on “ the Portingale 
voyage” (like the sons of the wicked uncle of The Norfolk 
Tragedy), you will have gone ashore for an hour, “ done ” the 
cathedral, the fruit market, the Alameda, and little else, 
for so wisely secretive is our system that to it the simple 
British ratepayer is a man suspect ; only to an eagle-faced 
Kaiser and his peeping, whispering aides are shown the secret 
galleries, the barbettes, rifling, and breach-action of our guns 
of position. 

And with all your seeing you have not seen the other side 
of the Rock, its two-mile-long wall of cliff, some of it with 
its feet in the sliding desert sands which the Levanters bring 
across from Africa, some of it soaring sheer from deep water, 
all, every rod of it, scarped by art and nature in such sort 
that the monkey-fingered middies of the fleet have never 
“ done ” it, nor ever will. 

Look up there (with my eyes, if not with your own). What 
do you see at the southern end of that prodigious rampart ? 
At the top O’Hara’s Tower cuts the skyline, a glittering white 

265 


266 


CRISIS 


finger, and plumb below, half-way between it and the restless 
blue water, is a mark upon the face of the cliff, a demilune, 
a little old-fashioned battery, pieced for a pair of footy, muzzle- 
loading ship’s guns. The whole affair is but a niche blasted 
out of the sheer face, only to be reached by a path (invisible 
from below) winding down from aloft. 

The work is so small, so remote, that from the summit it 
appears near the sea-level, from the sea below it seems near 
the summit. It is seven hundred feet from either. This is 
the Mediterranean Battery, and of it a tale is told. 


Months before the Mary of Yarmouth fell among thieves, 
in the September of the year of our Lord 1778, Great George 
being upon the throne and served by greater men, or the sun 
of Britain had surely set, Sir George Eliott was Governor of 
Gibraltar, and had troubles of his own. 

There was bad blood between the two corps, and that is 
the plain truth of the matter. What it began about, what 
were the rights of it, nobody knew : the fact remained that 
between His Majesty’s 12th Regiment of Foot and Harden- 
berg’s Hanoverians, a grudge subsisted, sore, embittered 
unreasonable. 

Nor was the dispute left to the rank and file, the officers’ 
messes were not upon speaking terms. One or the other 
should by rights have got the route ; but it was far from easy 
to shift a corps from a distant garrison in the old sailing-ship 
days ; thus things were awkward at “ the Rock ” in 1778- 
1779. 

The Governor took his measures — he was a stern man was 
Eliott ; the disputatious fellows were quartered as far apart 
as the limits of the Rock permitted, the Hanoverians lay in 
Irish Town by the Water Port, their rivals out by Europa 
Point. Bounds were set which the privates of the hostile 
forces crossed at peril of the Provost Marshal’s triangles. 
Yet, meet they did : men on fatigue delivering wood at their 
officers’ quarters would encounter one another among the 
steeply graded streets midway, and where they met they 
fought. 

Nor were their leaders wiser. Until the long bicker between 
St. James’s and Versailles culminated in ruptured relations, 
which were followed by a cartel from Madrid (“ What hurts 
my brother hurts me”), these civilly belligerent officers and 
gentlemen had been used to arrange meetings behind the 
Queen’s Seat, or would get leave to see the bull-fighting across 
atfAlgeciras or at St. Roque with ulterior motives. If, as 
happened more than once, one of the party returned with a 


GIBRALTAR 267 

puncture, the mischance was laid at the door of some nameless 
Spaniard. 

The Governor doubted, threatened to stop leave, and 
whilst the threat hung a-poise like hawk over stubble, lo, the 
darkening war-cloud [rumbled overhead, and, albeit hostilities 
were deferred for another seven months, all leave stopped 
automatically. This was in November 1778. 

Hitherto these affairs had been confined to subalterns, 
but at this juncture it pleased a Hanoverian major, Von 
Toppler by name, to put a public affront upon a gentleman 
of equal rank serving in the 12th. A meeting was judged 
essential to honour. They met at Catalan Bay, that tiny 
fishing hamlet beneath the eastern cliffs, and the German, an 
adept at the small sword, fell at the first pass and died where 
he fell. 

This was worse and worse ; a long and evenly contested 
bout ending in the temporary disablement of one or both 
combatants might have appeased the worse and aroused 
the better feelings of all concerned, paving the way for a 
general reconciliation ; but a momentary rally, a scramble, 
a disputable thrust in tierce, a movement of the left, too, 
which though involuntary was clearly hors de r£gle, merely 
inflamed the matter. The English second was rated in 
i unwarrantable terms ; things would have gone farther, but 
the patrol intervened. 

The Governor got wind of it : there is no explaining away 
! the violent death of a major of His Majesty’s forces in a 
garrison which is not under fire. 

Behold, then, the survivor and both seconds, after court- 
martial and much hard swearing, put upon half-pay. They 
sail for home ; the vacancies in the two regiments have been 
filled in due course — Major Wade Justin gazetted to the one, 
Major Cornelius Boyle to the other ; they arrive in the same 
man-o’-war. (Their juniors — Travis and Scrivener — this to 
fill the blank in the English — that in the German corps, had 
preceded them by the April convoy.) 

His Majesty’s frigate Paladin has dropped anchor off the 
Ragged Staff ; her attendant gun-brigs, Snorter and Hawk , 
are still hull-down beyond the Pearl Rock, rounding-up the 
last and slowest of the Falmouth convoy. The frigate’s launch 
is at the Waterport, oars shipped ; passengers are preparing 
to land, two gentlemen, and a lady, who sits between her 
companions, with her back to the sea-wall and its mooring- 
rings, a bright-eyed woman of thirty in unobtrusive mourning, 
buxom, arch, and accustomed to compliments. One would 
have judged from her manner that whatever the depths of her 
grief might have been, its first poignancy was past. The 


268 


CRISIS 


lady was enjoying life once more, had been amused by the 
novel experience of her first voyage and the flattery and 
attention which had fallen to her share upon the King’s ship. 

To the captain’s cabin and the wardroom she had bidden a 
smiling good-bye, but her delightful perplexities were not yet 
over — two of her admirers accompanied her ashore, were at 
that moment at her elbows. One, the larger and more voluble 
man, who has been keeping the lady in a condition of decorous 
merriment, bethinks him of his own affairs and is for decently 
disencumbering himself of hers in advance. 

“ And now, my dear leedy, the moment has come for part- 
ing ; - sweet sorrow,’ the pote calls ut, and in this case rightly, 
for ’tis but timporary, I trust. An’, by the way, permit me to 
proffer ye my assistance in any little arreengements which yer 
melancholy juties and onprotictud condition may devolve 
ye in.” 

“ Major Boyle, I am sure you are too kind,” simpered the 
lady. 

“ Not at all,” cried the gentleman airily. “ ’Tis a bargain 
thin. I will do mesilf the honour of calling upon ye, madam, 
as soon as my military engeegements permit” : he half arose, 
bowing. “ And now, me dear madam, I’ll refrain from en- 
geeging yer charming attintion ; ’tis not the hour for plea- 
santries ; yer fut is upon the threshold of new experiences ; 
’tis a mimorable moment in yer young life. First imprissions, 
my dear leedy, are priceless — let me advise ye to be garnering 
thim ; use your beautiful eyes, close yer charming lips, and 
husband yer resources.” 

“ La ! Major, whatever are you saying ? ” cried the lady, 
whose attention had been wandering. “ Husband ? and my 
poor dear colonel not twelve months in his grave ! ” 

She simpered coquettishly. The man upon the other side 
of her wondered ; never had she appeared to less advantage. 
He felt his lip curl and, half-turning in his seat, glanced out- 
board to hide his face. 

He sat upon the lady’s left; the Irishman had risen; a 
little ungloved right hand was dipping its finger-tips in the 
water alongside, the tortoise-shell hook of a parasol lay over 
the gunwale. As the launch, now no longer under steerage 
way, swung in towards the stonework the silent watcher saw 
with a start what might happen. 

“ Hands inboard , there ,” yelled the middy at the yoke- 
lines. The lady, still held in chat by her loquacious admirer, 
either did not hear or failed to understand that she was the 
person addressed. “Madam!” squealed the boy; she, laugh- 
ing gaily at a final sally, retained her position. There was yet 
the tenth of a second left for action ; leaning behind her, i he 


GIBRALTAR 


269 

English Major made a snatch at her wrist, caught it roughly, 
the boat, lifting upon the swell, jarred dully against the green, 
weed-coated stone. Something crushed. The lady shrieked. 
The middy shut his eyes. She was caressing knuckles rasped 
by nothing severer than a man’s grip. 

“ Sir ! How dare you ? I never ! ” 

“ Justin ! May I ask what ye mean by this conduct ? ” 
said the Irishman in silkiest accents, his eyes sparkling under 
twitching brows. 

“ Begad, sir, ’twas mighty well done ! ” broke in the lieu- 
tenant in charge. “ You saved the lady’s hand. See here, 
madam, what your five fingers would have been like.” He 
was pointing to the parasol-handle crushed flat between the 
gunwale of the heavy launch and the unyielding stonework. 

“ Oh, Major Justin, how can I thank you enough ? ” ex- 
claimed the lady, a little breathlessly. 

“ It isn’t necessary to say anything more about it, madam ; 
but if ye will permit me to escort ye to your lodging I shall 
feel abundantly repaid. I bespoke ye a porter by the first 
boat. I see the fellow awaiting us at the top of the steps : 
allow me.” 

He had not replied to his angry rival. The obvious event 
had done that for him. Taking courteous possession of his 
fair prize, he passed the Waterport envied and admired by the 
crew of the launch. 

“ Handy enough for a King’s ship ; pity he’s to be wasted 
ashore,” grunted a jack, pulling stroke, who had seen all. 

“ And who might those fine, new, live officer-passengers of 
yours be ? ” asked an orange-woman of the lieutenant, an old 
acquaintance. The lieutenant told all he knew. “ Whew ! ” 
whistled the dame, and shifted the quid in her cheek. “ Then 
the fat’s in the fire again, sir ! More bloody doin’s afore the 
month is out, as sure as there’s monkeys on the Rock.” 

Next morning, in the anteroom at the Convent, the new- 
comers were awaiting the Governor’s leisure to report them- 
selves. They sate in silence. Officers of the garrison passed 
in with their “ morning states,” returned with their orders. 
The levee was thinning, their turns would come soon. 

An orderly, who before he enlisted must surely have been a 
town crier or master of ceremonies, came to the door, throwing 
a chest. Ma-jor ” 

The Irishman got his feet under him, “ Justin ! ” He ex- 
tended them again with a smothered oath. The Englishman 
arose and followed the man to the presence. 

Governor Sir George Eliott, whose business it was to know 
his men, looked the new-comer over with interest ; his broad, 
sea-bronzed mask of a face was made up to an enduring 


CRISIS 


270 

patience ; he foresaw an awful time ahead of him ; he wanted 
men, men ; King George sent him broken gamblers, disgraced 
fribbles, the culls and incapables of their services, rubbish. 
The Rock was the most unpopular of stations. He recognised 
in Justin a man after his own heart, and beamed upon 
him. 

“ Sir, I am glad to make your acquaintance.” The greeting 
reached the ears of those in the anteroom through an imper- 
fectly closed door, and one at least of the listeners cocked an 
eyebrow. 

“ You served in Madras, I see, under my friend Coote ; I 
have heard of ye, sir, and all to your advantage. Ye are 
gazetted to the 12th with seniority, which is unusual. Ye 
came out in the Paladin , I believe ; had ye an agreeable 
voyage ? Had ye companions ? So — humph ! Who is with- 
out ? ” A pause. “ Send Major Boyle in.” 

“ Ma-jor Boyle ! ” bawled the orderly. 

The Irishman obeyed the summons with alacrity. He strode 
into the room and saluted, as fine a figure of a man as you 
shall see in a whole garrison : tall, splendidly set-up, fresh- 
complexioned ; the sparkle of hazel eyes lit up his face from 
under alertly arched brows. The Governor took him all in 
with a solemn regard. The jaw was too square and heavy, 
the mouth verged upon truculence. The head looked as round 
as a bullet and as hard. The man, one felt, would be an 
exacting friend, an encroaching comrade, a dangerous enemy, 
but for a night assault, a forlorn hope, no fitter fellow stepped. 

His Commander returned his salute in silence, looked him 
over in silence, referred again to some writing, a private 
advice, apparently just arrived by Packet. He opened his 
lips. 

“ Step outside there, and shut that door.” The orderly 
obeyed. 

“ Major Boyle, I make your acquaintance, sir ; I trust it 
may ripen into mutual respect. But I am bound to warn ye, 
sir, that your record has preceded ye.” 

The man addressed started, his rocky face flushed. The 
Englishman interposed. “ Have I your permission to retire, 
sir ? ” 

“Ye have not, sir. I desire ye to remain. I am speaking 
to the two of ye, for your guidance, gentlemen, and for your 
good. 

“ You, Major Boyle, come to me from the 41st, but ’tis not 
your first exchange : ye served in the North Corks and also in 
the Fermanagh Fusileers.” 

“ I did, sir. I was mentioned in despatches whilst serving 
with the Fusileers in Canada.” 


GIBRALTAR 


271 

“ And stood your court-martial, if I am not misinformed, 
for killing a brother officer.” 

“ And had my sword returned to me, sir ; it was an affair 
of honour, properly seconded, everything in order.” • 

“You were the challenger, sir.” The man addressed allowed 
the statement to pass. The Governor continued: “But the 
unfortunate experience was wasted upon ye ; it has not been 
your last of the sort, as it was not your first. Ye went out 
recently with a civilian, and still more recently with a Militia 
officer. Ye stood your trial at Chester Assizes, sir, upon the 
capital charge.” 

“ And was acquittud again, sir.” 

“ As I read this, the jury disagreed, which appears to have 
been a most fortunate circumstance for ye, for there were no 
seconds, I see.” He tapped the paper. “ Well, sir, it seems 
that instead of putting ye on your trial again, the minister 
has permitted ye to exchange, has sent ye out to me. I am 
but little obliged to Mr. Jenkinson, if I may speak frankly. 

“ And now, sir, a word in your ear ; ye have come to a hor- 
net’s nest. There is some damned old senseless grudge between 
your regiments, gentlemen — yours and yours” — he nodded to 
each in turn. “The men have been confined to barracks this 
month past, but in this latitude a month is too much : it 
spells scurvy. After all is said, I must rely upon the regimental 
officers, upon you, just you. Your predecessors fell out and 
played the fool : Von Toppler and Stedman. They paid the 
penalty ; one is in hell and the other on half-pay. But how 
am I to hold this place for my King if my own officers run one 
another through the gizzard for a wry word ? ” He paused, 
and his eye was severe. “ Now, gentlemen, ye come upon the 
ground with clean sheets so far as this silly matter between 
the 12th and the Hardenbergs is concerned. Ye know 
nothing, and desire to know nothing, but my express wishes. 
Ye will start fair and take a posture that shall make for 
amity. Ye hear me ? ” Again the great soldier’s eye roved 
from one to the other ; the Englishman was attending to him 
with an air of respectful concern, the Irishman’s countenance 
was a medley of pent emotions. 

“Ye have enjoyed a favourable voyage : ye have made one 
another’s acquaintance under agreeable circumstances, and 
are about to take up your duties with nothing but the friendliest 
feelings between ye. This is so ? ” 

“ Certainly, sir,” replied Justin : the other assented less 
cordially, but assent he did. 

“ Then, gentlemen, I will ask ye to take one another’s 
hands, here in my presence — so. I am obliged to ye. I wish 
ye a good-day. Ye may go.” 


272 


CRISIS 


The two officers reached the door of the Convent, passed 
the sentry, took a dozen steps side by side in a silence which 
the Englishman had no especial desire to break. His com- 
panion, as he perceived, was smarting under the rebukes of 
his new Commander. How would he bear himself ? 

Beyond earshot of the sentry the Irishman wheeled hotly 
upon the man beside him, “ Well ? ” 

Justin stopped, as was but civil, but awaited some more 
definite indication of the man’s meaning. None was forth- 
coming. 

“ Major Boyle, as you apparently invite me to make some 
comment upon what I have heard, I will just say that so far 
as it touches yourself I have already forgotten it, every word 
of it. I beg to wish ye a good ” 

“ For -got ut, have ye ? ” mocked the other in a high-pitched, 
satirical tone. “ I would hardly have thought ut. Your 
hearing is perfect, my dear sir ; your ears are long enough, in 
all conscience ! ” 

“ And I have already forgotten that too,” replied Justin in 
haste, and, turning upon his heel, left, pursued by a jeering 
laugh. 


CHAPTER II 


THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS 

A fortnight had elapsed. The anteroom of the Convent on 
that early forenoon in late July was the scene of as many 
curiosities, pleasurable wonders, reserved admirations, and 
mute surmises as ten male bosoms are capable of sustaining. 

The senior majors of the regiments in garrison were there 
to report to theii commander-in-chief the morning states of 
their commands as shown upon the parades just dismissed. 

There was Stokes of the Artillery, and Jessop of the 56th, 
Kellett of the 39th, and de Selincourt of De la Motte’s, Menzies 
of the 73rd (McLeod’s), and others, good men and true, who 
were to stand starkly enough in the testing time that was at 
hand, but whose names have small meaning to-day. Among 
them was one whom we have seen before and whom we shall 
; have more to do with anon. 

They had come in twos and threes, expecting nothing out 
! of the common. Conceive, then, their surprise at finding 
; themselves forestalled, the levbe not yet opened, the door of 
! the Governor’s room closed to them, and His Excellency 
reported to be in conference with a merchant captain and some 
civilian. So said the Governor’s orderly, adding in an under- 
tone that a third member of the party was still awaiting an 
audience ; the man’s eye decorously directing his interrogator 
to a corner occupied by a lady. 

A lady, no less. Now, ladies were few at Gibraltar, and, 
as it happened, not one of the ten majors was married. A 
lady ; — the bluff masculine greetings bandied about the room 
in the modulated tones demanded by that closed door were 
made and were succeeded by a self-conscious pause in the 
conversation, a hiatus which extended to a helpless silence, 
absurd and banal, for which each of the ten fell silently to 
I blaming the other nine. Muted voices came from the inner 
I room ; the minutes ran, yet none spake ; nor did the lady’s 

18 


273 


CRISIS 


274 

dropped veil and downcast eyes afford an opening, whilst with 
this petticoated stranger for auditor it seemed indecorous 
to moot a besieged garrison’s one subject of conversation — the 
price of beef. 

A lady, obviously young, and graciously shaped, and almost 
certainly pretty, nay beautiful ; every man of them whose 
seat permitted him to use his eyes without offence was ready 
to swear that the lady was a beauty. (Would she but raise 
her veil !) The softly rounded and delicately tinted cheek 
impressed by her little hand gave warrant for the inference : 
so did the fineness of the neck beneath the ear, and the ear 
itself, overhung by one curling tendril of dark hair, setting off 
its translucency and modelling, just the perfect double spiral, 
suggestive of a fallen elm-leaf. Ah, men, men ! How each 
of those good fellows sate thinking his own thoughts and cursing 
his luck, and shyly looked and softly longed, wishing every- 
thing were wholly different, and that she, and that he, and . . . 
for this lady sitting there so stilly, cheek upon hand, and with 
eyes that never were lifted, was sad, as it seemed, and was 
without doubt one of those woman-creatures whom our Lord 
God, the Master Potter, throws but once in a way, and who, 
when they come from His wheel, whether they will or no, stir 
the pulses of every man who looks upon them. 

And still the voices came dully from behind the door. 

Then from outside too came sounds, a softly whistled air, 
an Irish quick-step, and the ponderous but elastic tread of a 
strong and heavy man : the eleventh major, Boyle of Harden- 
berg’s Hanoverians, strode into the room, and glanced about 
him. 

The lady in her corner started and raised her eyes ; he, 
coming as he came from the brightness without, noticed 
nothing, but the rest saw that she had lifted her veil and had 
arisen, and was moving from her corner towards the last 
comer, with outstretched, tremulous hands and the quick, small 
steps of the timid — “ Con!” Her voice filled the room, its 
vibrant contralto thrilled £11 hearers like a plucked harp- 
string. The hearts of ten of the men rose to their throats. 
“Husband ! ” she cried, low yet piercingly: it was now the 
G string of a fine violin beneath the bow of a master, an 
appealing crescendo. It was borne in upon the hearts of the 
ten that here was a tragedy. But the actor whose cue it 
manifestly was made strange work of his part. The man’s 
great jowl drew forward, his brows came together and darkened, 
his eyes sparkled, his cheeks crimsoned. With an unpardon- 
able oath he swung upon his heel, giving the lady his shoulder 
as he sought to leave the room. She, on her part, had reached 
him, had him by the sleeve, by the skirt as he shook himself 


THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS 273 

free. He stepped back, dragging her with him ; oversetting her 
balance, she was now upon her knees, her beautiful face awork 
and pleading, her white column of throat convulsed. And 
all this had befallen in some five ticks o’ the clock. 

. 


“ As strange a story as ever I listened to,” said the Governor, 
and indulged himself with snuff. His Excellency was a large, 
bluff-faced, strongly-built man in middle life, Scottish by 
descent, by degree a baronet of the United Kingdom, and a 
General by rank, and, by the providence of Almighty God, 
at this moment in charge of the Rock of Gibraltar for King 
George, the third of the name. What was his outward seeming 
in later life when, famous and ennobled, you may see - for your- 
self by studying the great Reynolds in the National Gallery. 
“ The brick-red Titan with the Key,” men call it, and, certes, 
it has given many of us the impression that though force or 
fate might conceivably have torn arm from shoulder, or hand 
from wrist, while life lasted that key neither should, might, 
nor could in any wise be wrenched, twisted, or cut from its 
holder’s grip. At the time of his coming into this my story 
he was neither great nor famous, nor with any prospect of 
being Lord Heathfield and a hero for all time. Nor to his 
immediates did he seem at the first sight especially heroic. 
Yet, as a good horse will run in any shape, so will your heaven- 
sent leader approve himself, if given his opportunity, in any 
form, even the homeliest. This, for example, which ap- 
pealed to men as merely a large-boned North-Briton with an 
eye, later, with a temper also, and a rigorous curb upon it. 
Little by little, had you served under him during that awe- 
some four-years siege, the real greatness of his soul would 
have been manifest, disengaging itself from the accidentals 
of form and garb, until he, who had started as a silent dis- 
ciplinarian with some powers of concentration, towered at 
the last above his contemporaries as the incarnation of stub- 
born endurance, imperturbable patience, and inexhaustible 
resource. 

“A strange story,” he repeated, and closed the lid of his 
box, regarding quizzically the man before him, a squat, square, 
sea-bronzed sailor, master of a brig, which had been reported 
as lost, but had made the harbour that morning some days 
after the arrival of the convoy of which she had formed a 
, member. Personal belongings of his own formed part of her 
cargo. The case was not free from suspicion ; ’twas war-time, 
and the Governor did well to be suspicious. He fingered this 
as he fingered all clues : the safety of his charge might depend 
upon his sagacity in reading riddles. Beside the mariner 


CRISIS 


276 






stood a youth attesting his narrative, and with a story and 
claims of his own. 

“ My man, ye were reported to me as taken by the Moors 
under cover of fog, which agrees with your own account. 
His Majesty’s marine gave ye small help, as I gather. But 
ye retook your ship, which was commendable ; but, having 
done so, ye tell me that ye most foolishly and unjustifiably 
put the pirates ashore. What, man ? ’Tis unbelievable ! 
But that your turning up again proves your tale, none would 
credit ye. Ma conscience ! Such doings smell of Bedlam. 
What said your company ? Oh, they mutinied, did they ? 
Small blame to ’em. And how got ye your friends ashore 
single-handed ? What ? This gentleman and yourself 
manned your boat and a lady-passenger steered! Now, why, 
in Heaven’s name, in place of running upon such risks, did ye 
not bring the rogues to me to hang ? ” 

“ I sorter reckon, Sir George — friend, I would say, as every 
man dew best in’s own country,” replied Furley. 

The Governor stared. “ Sir, ye are plainly one of God 
Almighty’s own jackasses, and I’ll waste no words on 
ye.” He purpled grimly, and sipped his toast-and-water. 
(An abstemious man, Eliott, who, knowing himself of a 
choleric disposition, dieted rigorously, and practised vege- 
tarianism.) 

“ As for you, young sir, I know not what to make of ye. 
My last advices from Falmouth came by a fast Packet that 
sailed a week behind this convoy, and are to the effect that 
Ensign John Chisholm was drowned in the stranding of the 
transport Mary of Shoreham. Against that is the statement 
of the captain of the Paladin frigate that ye reported your- 
self to him by signal whilst at sea. Against that again I have 
the story of the first-lieutenant of the Snorter, who saw your 
brig adrift with her decks in possession of pirates ; yet here 
ye present yourself alive, free and whole. Ma conscience ! 
Ye have as many lives as a cat, and should go far, sir. I 
hardly know how to deal with ye, for ye come before me wanting 
everything — commission, arms, uniforms, ay, and the squad 
of reliefs which ye commanded.” The lad quaked for his 
future, the great man hemmed and scrawled something with 
a quill. “ By your Master’s story ye can obey orders. Take 
this to the Lieut. -Col. McKenzie at his quarters, and report 
yourself for duty. Heh ! What’s this ? ” 

A tremulous, high-pitched wail had pierced the closed door ; 
it came from the anteroom. 

“ A woman,” said Sir George testily. “ I want no women 
here.” 

“ ’Tis a young female, sir ; the lady as I was telling ye on — 






THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS 277 

a gal, sir, as I’ve giv a passage to. She be a-seekin’ of her 
husband, sir ; a Major Tighe,” began Furley. 

The Governor was making for the door ; Chisholm, his 
pulses hammering, held it open. The room beyond was 
crowded with men in uniform awaiting audience ; it was 
ringing with a woman’s cries, bitter, heart-broken wails. 
Sue was upon her knees, clinging to the skirt of a tall and 
magnificent soldier, whose face displayed the liveliest emotions 
of anger and confusion, and who, whilst trying ineffectually 
to release himself and silence the girl, was furiously protesting 
in dumb show and again beneath his breath, that he knew 
her not, nor had ever set eyes upon her previously. 

“In the sight of my Maker, I swear ’’ hissed the man ; 

but the girl was not to be outfaced. 

“ Con, dear ! Oh, Mr. Tighe ! Major, darling. Oh, my 
dear, don’t risk your poor soul upon such a wicked lie. Ye 
are my husband ! Ye know ye are ! ’’ 

“ Faith, madam, I know nothing of the sort, and never to 

my knowledge ” The man’s countenance was distorted 

and congested with rage. Since the recognition on the voyage 
he had looked for some kind of scene at its end, but the welcome 
news that Sue’s ship had been taken had lifted the load from 
his mind ; all was yet to go well ; his luck was a wonder. 
Judge of his feelings, you, when on almost the first occasion 
of reporting the morning-state of his regiment he found him- 
self confronted and claimed by his wife, in the embarrassing 
presence of near a dozen men of his rank. The emergency 
! found him resourceless ; he had handled it amiss from the first 
j word. Instead of leading the lady politely aside, he had let 
himself be startled into heat, and had brutally repulsed her, 
ay, and with injurious expressions. He had set the room 
against him from the moment he had opened his lips. What- 
ever the lady might be, she was not, and could not have been, 
what he coarsely charged her with being. For some five 
minutes before his arrival her beauty, grace, and modest 
carriage had been winning the hearts of the men. Too late 
Boyle recognised his mistake ; but saw no way to amend it. 
Time was running against him, priceless moments ; unless 
these cries could be silenced before that door opened, the 
situation would be more than awkward. Oh, to throttle and 
beat ! Impossible ! The watching ring saw both in the 
man’s bloodshot eye and stood ready to intervene. 

But the door had opened. “ Silence here ! ” boomed the 
deep voice of authority. Every man in the apartment saluted, 
even the perplexed and savage Boyle : only the woman dis- 
obeyed. She, oblivious of all save that she had found her 
| master, knelt and clung and sobbed her passionate entreaties. 


CRISIS 


278 

The Governor, a man whom no mischance of warfare 
could disconcert, was for one moment taken aback. He bent 
a swift, keen glance upon the pair, and decided (what he had 
just heard from Furley helping him) that here was no art, 
but a piece of nature : one of the two at least was not acting. 
The posture was the posture of womanhood in dire distress, 
the voice was the voice of a lady. A busy man, with a great 
charge upon him, he was yet human, and was sensible of some 
natural curiosity to make acquaintance with the heroine 
of an adventure wherein a woman had stood beside her 
captain when his crew flinched. 

“ Release him, madam ; I will hear you. Bring her within.*' * 

Blinded by stinging tears, Sue saw nothing, nor was capable 
of hearing reason; but Furley’s hands were laid upon hers 
with gentle insistence. His proximity calmed her : she could 
trust him. 

“ Cast him loose, my gal ; His Honour bids thee. He’ll 
listen to us, an’ do thee right, never fear ! ” Lifting her to 
her feet, he drew her hand within his arm. 

The door of the inner room closed upon the matter — a suit 
matrimonial preferred at a moment’s notice. Who would be 
Governor upon such terms ? Who would not with such women 
about ? Within the anteroom nine men out of the ten 
turned wide-eyed and open-mouthed to one another for ex- 
planation, corroboration, and sympathy. It was no business 
of theirs, but the cry of a woman, and such cries, are the 
business of every man within call ; and nine tongues wagged 
softly. But the tenth major sate silent, a small, neat-handed, 
well-groomed man, whom we recognise as our friend Wade 
Justin. He sate hearing only his own heart knock whilst 
the room buzzed softly around him. “ He said,” “ She said,” 
"My word, how he looked!” “Lord, what a figure!” He 
caught never a word of it, having all his work to hold himself 
together, to command hands and lips, whilst over and over 
within the back of a whirling brain the question, “ Is it pos- 
sible ? ” ran round and round like a wheel, and over and under 
it the words, “ So like, so like ! ” ticked on and on like a 
death-watch in an empty house at midnight. For all that 
he knew he might have been alone in the anteroom. When 
the lady had raised her veil Justin had caught his breath; 
when her soft contralto call had pulsed across the room, the 
blood had flown to his head ; voice, eye, face, figure, had 
brought him to his feet with his heart in his mouth, had 
swept away the mists of seventeen years and shown him again, 
as in a swift, waking dream, the lost love of his youth. He 
had hovered, watchful and tense, upon the verge of speech 
and action during those hot moments of claim and denial, 


THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS 279 

watching baffled affection beating itself to death against the 
spikes of brute selfishness. Surmising much, fettered by his 
ignorance, he had hardly restrained -himself, and now knew 
that he had done well. 


The Governor motioned the weeping girl to a chair. Furley 
and Chisholm steadied her into it : her agitation was piteous. 
The three men remained standing, the two upon Sue’s either 
hand, the one as far from her as his dignity and the arrange- 
ments of the room permitted. 

“ And now, madam,” said Eliott, “ I will thank you to 
explain yourself ; say what ye have to say, and as briefly as 
possible.” 

“ Before these — civilians, Sir George ? ” demurred Boyle. 

“As I understand the matter, sir, they are the lady’s 
attestors. Am I right ? ” 

“ She can’t dew wi’out me,” drawled Furley, still holding 
the lady’s hand in his immense paw. “ Cheer up, my gal ! ” 
This last in a gruff whisper audible to all. 

Can't do ? ’ and why ? Pardon me, Sir George, but this 
is like to be a ticklish matter for a man in my service. This 
injurious claim, ridiculous though it be, touches me very 
closely, and I fail to see what interest it can have to persons 
who are utter strangers to me.” 

“ Do ye stick to that ? ” asked the Governor, observing 
repudiation leap simultaneously to the eyes of both the lady’s 
backers. 

“ I do, sir.” 

“ Then there yew be a point or tew off yar course, bor, as 
I’ll precious soon show ye,” drawled Furley. 

“ I have messed wi’ Major Boyle a guid few times,” said 
Chisholm guardedly. 

Boyle snorted indignantly. “ I doubt it, but it might be. 

I cannot recall the face of every subaltern in the service.” 

“ They will remain, sir,” said the Governor. “If ye can 
rebut the lady’s charge, whatever it may be, their presence 
here will have done ye good rather than harm. Now, 
madam.” 

Sue had in some measure recovered herself ; she was a girl 
of spirit. If the suddenness of the occasion in the anteroom 
had taken her unawares, she knew well that it now behoved 
her to fight with dignity and courage. 

Palpitating she was, tingling and almost physically sore 
from the vehemence of her husband’s rebuff, and as ex- 
quisitely mortified as a woman of delicate nurture must be 
who, surprised and carried beyond herself by love’s urgency, 


28 o 


CRISIS 


has bared, as it were, her very bosom’s warmth and secret 
tenderness to the man of her heart, only to find herself spurned 
with insults : and this in the presence of male strangers ; 
his friends belike. She shut her eyes tightly, and shuddered 
inwardly like a guilty thing at the thought of the indignity, 
the exposure of it. What must those gentlemen think of her ? 

The Governor’s voice hummed in her ears ; there was a 
sort of human comfort in it ; he seemed a fatherly old person. 
Rallying at the pressure of Furley’s great hand, and conscious 
of young Chisholm at her side, she drew the tattered rags of 
her womanly pride around her stripped shoulders, called dumbly 
upon her Maker, and opened her eyes. She had raised her 
veil, her little hands were a-work in her lap, her lovely coun- 
tenance flushed and wet with tears, but with a steady voice 
she preferred her case. “ He is my husband, sir ; Major 
Cornelius Tighe is his name. I made his acquaintance in 
the stage, whilst travelling from Chester to London last 
December ; the twelfth it was. My aunt had died ; I was 
on my way to live with another aunt ” 

“ Yes, yes, come to the point,” urged Sir George, with some 
natural impatience of details. 

“ And he was very civil, kind, indeed ; and when we got to 
London it was all strange to me, for I was not met, and it 
was dark, and the hackney coachman was drunk and tried 
to have my purse. Also he took me to the wrong house, and 
oh, they told me it was my aunt’s house, and that she was just 
buried. What made them tell such wicked lies I don’t know, 
for it was some other woman’s house, and she would not let 
me stop even for one night, sir. And Con, I mean Major 
Tighe, who happened to be passing — I don’t know how, but 
he was, and had saved me from the coachman and beaten 
him — Con, sir, would have it that there was nothing for it 
but I must marry him at once, that very minute. He could 
give me the protection of his name, he said. And just then 
a clergyman happened to come in, and he said so too, and 
I was bewildered and lost, sir ; and I am an orphan, and they 
were all round me at once, and it seemed so improper to pass 
the night in the street — all in the dark ; and — and — and — I let 
the clergyman do it. Was I wrong ? ” She bent her head 
and wept gently. 

“ And ye are sure that this is the person ? ” asked the 
Governor. 

“ Oh, quite — quite sure. How can I doubt it ? He was 
my husband. We lived together for — how long was it, Con ? 
Weeks ! And you were kind to me at first. Oh, Con, you 
know ! But why did ye spend all my money and leave me ? 
Why do ye deny me ? ” 


THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS 281 

And again that wonderful contralto moved all hearts in 
the room — save one. 

“ But I do deny it, madam,” said Boyle hardily, coming 
forward with a stride and half turning to the Governor, who 
regarded him closely, and after a momentary pause asked 
whether he denied the marriage merely, or every circumstance 
of the lady’s story. 

“ Every single circumstance, Sir George. I solemnly 
assure ye I have never set eyes upon the leedy until ten 
minutes back. There is no particle of truth in her tale, so 
far as regards myself, I mean — for I wish to spare the young 
person if it be possible. ’Tis plainly a case of misteeken 
identity. To begin with, my name is not Tighe.” 

“ But your Christian name is, as I think, Cornelius ? ” 
remarked the Governor. 

“ A coincidence, merely, Sir George. The name is a com- 
mon one in Ireland.” 

“ But if yewr name was not Tighe, whoy did ye call yewrself 
Tighe when yew went and merried this here young female ? ” 
asked Furley, laying the lines upon the table. “ I was there, 
yewr warship — m’lord — my friend, I should say. They 
called me in out o’ the strit to give the gal away. I see her 
goo inter the house ; I see this man a-follerin’ of her. She 
sim’d a bit scairt, for she stuck her little head outer winder 
and sorter shruck tew me for help. Soo, in I gooed, and 
sorter saw fair play. ’Twere done t’ rights, so far as I could 
make out ; oh, the chap were a passon right enough. This 
here man promised this an’ that, and there was a ring ; and 
he sim’d to make out as how he done it all out o’ the goodness 
and pity of his heart. But I’d my ’spicions ; and — I say,” 
wheeling suddenly upon Boyle, “ d’jew remember what I says 
tew ye jes’ afore yew left the house wi’ this here lady ? ” 

“ I tell ye I’ve never met you before, my good man,” 
replied Boyle blandly. 

Without change of face, Furley crossed the room and took 
the amazed Irishman by the wrists. “ Now, does thee rec’lect 
me ? ” The men’s eyes met and remained as it were in contact, 
whilst their bodies rocked, and it was the bold, hard eye of 
the soldier that flinched first. 

Many a time had Boyle beaten down an enemy’s glance; 
few had found themselves able to endure the menace of his 
haughty stare when it pleased him to assume the bully, but 
now, and almost for the first time, the man found himself 
unable to meet the uncompromising thrusts of those steel- 
gray daggers which stabbed his brain from under the sea- 
captain’s bushy brows. 

The paralysing stricture of his adversary’s grip infuriated 


282 


CRISIS 


him, whilst distracting his attention ; it broke upon him that 
here was his master ; that this was a man who could have 
killed him with his naked fists. He blenched, and knew that 
he blenched, and that the Governor watched him, and noted. 

The gage had been thrown down, picked up, and the duel 
fought and won in the space of three ticks of the Governor’s 
clock. 

“ Sir George, what does this mean ? ” protested Boyle, 
after one vehement but ineffectual effort to free himself. 

" Release him, Master, and stand back,” bade the judge. 
The burly, oaken-faced seaman obeyed. “ The larst time as 
I had that there feller in the bilboes that way was when he’d 
a-got a jarvey down and seemed o’ harf a mind for to dew 
for him. Oh, he rec’lects me right enough ; don’t ye, bor ? . . . 
No ? . . . Ah, yah, I dew sim tew fare tew wish as yew’d 
try tew spik the trewth. Dint yew ship south by the brig, 
Mary of Shoreham, transport, Captain Cousins, from Bugsby’s 
Reach, last Jenooary ? Ye ‘ can’t remember’ — no ? What; 
not the ship yew sailed in ? — but other folkses can ; I dew, 
for one, for I see yew and yewr kit goo aboard her. Yes, 
bor, yew may well oopen yewr eyes, tha’s how we come to be 
on yewr tracks to-day.” Boyle was silent. The Governor 
nodded. 

“ Mr. Chisholm, have you anything to add ? ” he asked. 

“ This, Sir George, that on the voyage out the frigate 
Paladin passed us vara near upon one occasion, and it wass 
then that Mrs. Tighe recognised this gentleman and cried out 
to him ; and he ... ” 

“ D’ye dare to assert that I replied to her, or acknowledged 
her ? ” interrupted Boyle. 

“ Not in so many words, sir, but ye reddened vastly, and 
steppit dounfrae the nettings michty quick, to avoid further 
recognitions, as it appeared to me.” 

“ He did so ; I saw him,” assented Furley, with the deep 
cone of a staunch old hound owning to a line. 

“ Fiddlesticks ! Moonshine ! Balderdash ! — What shall we 
have next ? Your pardon, Sir George, but this grows past 
human endurance.” 

The Governor’s slow, wise, wrinkle-embedded eye was upon 
him, the Governor’s mouth opened, after the considering 
pause of a judge who is for turning and examining both sides 
of a statement before proceeding. The morning states might 
wait. This matter touched the character of a man of whom 
it was well to know the worst. He would probe it to the 
bottom. 

“ This alleged marriage took place at night ? ” 

“ So they say, sir.” 


THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS 283 

“ And in a private house ? ” 

“So it would seem, sir.” 

And without a special licence ? ” 

“ There was never a licence at all, sir, — evidently ; I mean 
there could have been none upon the admissions . . . the 
allegations.” 

“ My own opinion,” agreed the Governor, with a certain 
leaning towards his subordinate which was new to his manner. 

“ And this clergyman,” he continued, scrutinising the 
lines, ‘ O, C, T, Oct. Baskett, M.A.’ (if I have the name right) ; 
may I take it that he was no parson at all ? ” 

“Ye may that, Sir George — I mean — ” hurriedly, but too 
late, for the Governor was instant. 

“ What d’ye mean, sir ? and why must I take it from your 
lips that a man whom ye disclaim all knowledge of is not in 
orders ? . . . Take your time, sir, if you please,” with severe 
courtesy. 

“ I mean ...” 

“ No beatings about the bush. Answer me ! ” 

“ I conceive there is no such person in orders, sir.” 

“ On what d’ye base your conception ? Have ye acquaint- 
ance with every clerk in orders ? Consider ; ’tis not a minute 
since ye heard this man’s name for the first time. ■■ Ye were 
told the man was a laic ? * Worse and worse ! By whom ? ” 
(No answer.) “And, pray, how can ye reconcile your par- 
ticular and convenient knowledge of this man (whom ye never 
met, ye tell me) with your denials of every preceding alle- 
gation ? ” (No answer.) “ Who is this Baskett ? Speak, 
sir.” 

Boyle bit his lip in the torments of first confusion. The 
great man looked him over with grim disfavour. “ Sirrah, 
I have found ye out ; d’ye see ? Your tongue tripped. Now, 
and for the last time, will ye swear to me upon the honour 
of a gentleman, and one of His Majesty’s commissioned officers, 
that ye did not go through the form of marriage with this 
young woman ? ” 

There was a pause. Boyle, at the end of his resources, 
inwardly shivered and plunged. “ It was no marriage, sir, 
— and she knew it.” 

Furley, a mastiff leaning upon a leash, let a low, gurgling 
roar, and then threw back his mighty shoulders, lifting fists 
like knots in three-inch cable. For an instant the Quaker 
died within him, the beast awoke and wrought in his muscles, 
then manhood came to the top, but it was the manhood of 
an earlier experience, the prize-fighter. “ Foul blow, that, 
bor ! We claim the stakes*! ” 

And Sue ? Nature takes the deepest wound without 


CRISIS 


284 

audible protest. There are injuries to flesh and spirit so 
unforeseen, so bewildering and overmastering, that it does not 
occur to the victim to relieve the tension of such fierce anguish 
with a cry. 

Sue winced as she sate as if from a cruel stripe ; the quivering 
eye, dilated nostril, and the pallor of parted lips voiced her 
dumb distress. Oh, the shame of it ! the wicked wrong of 
it ! What would poor dear auntie have said ? What must 
the Governor think ? and Mr. Chisholm ? . . . Neither maid, 
wife, nor widow, and not twenty. Oh, the cruelty of it ! 
Slowly she turned from the man whom until that moment 
she had believed to be her husband, nor did she look at him 
again ; love had died hard, but was dead at last. 

“ No marriage ? Ye are drolling, surely, Major,” interposed 
Chisholm, curbing his voice to a softness that sounded very 
strange to his own ears, and would have seemed ominous to 
any one who knew him. 

“ Sirrah, will ye be pleased to hold your peace or to leave 
this room ? ” asked the Governor sternly. 

The lad bowed himself back into a tense self-command. 
Goliath disdained to acknowledge the presence of little David 
by the movement of an eyelid. 

It was from this moment that Chisholm dated his man- 
hood. Not yet had that exquisite hope arisen beckoning him 
on ; for the time he had never a thought of self, all was for 
her ; he had hitherto been simmering with indignation, but 
this dastardly stab found him cool and hard as a blade come 
from its final bath, tempered for use. The saeva indignatio 
of his race, the cold fury of countless generations of combative 
Celts, burned in the eyes which shone in the wan, white face 
of him. Had those two been alone upon some narrow inch 
or skerry, as in the long-syne day of the Norse holm-gang, 
it was not the slender lad that would have been left to the 
tide and the gulls ; courteous, cautious, and incredibly sudden 
and agile, the burly soldier would have rued his meeting with 
such a human wild-cat. 

“ Then, it comes to this, sir,” the Governor was summing 
up. “You own to seducing an innocent child by a pretence 
of marriage, and to having left her upon the streets penni- 
less ” 

“ I am a soldier, sir,” urged Boyle, moistening dry lips and 
labouring excuses, “ I profess mesilf no better than others, 
nor do I conceive mesilf to be worse ; a man in a marching 
regiment must take his pleasures where he finds ’em. I am 
not the first at this game, nor am I like to be the last. I 
venture to appale to your Excellency as a man to a man. 
You have been young, you ’are still human ; did we consthruct 


THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS 285 

oursilves ? Such as we are, are we not as God made 
us ? ” 

“ I have no authority to speak for the Almighty whom ye 
claim as an accessory before the fact, but, for myself, sir, 
whom ye charge as particeps criminis, I simply return your 
words in your teeth, and ask ye, Have ye done ? ” The 
Governor was warming. 

" Your pardon is begged, Sir George,” pleaded Boyle in 
his softest and richest brogue. “Through life,' ’tis me con- 
stant misfortune to be misunderstood. May I submit, with 
the greatest possible humility, that my fault,' whatever degree 
of gravity your Excellency may attach to it, is not a military 
offince.” 

“ Sir,” replied the Governor, “ ye have lied to your 
Commander-in-Chief with the impudence of a carted street 
walker ! A military offence ? ’Tis larceny, no less. My 
!j gorge rises at the sight of ye ! . . . Of what sum did he rob 
ye, madam ? It shall be stopped from his pay, every shilling 
| of it, with interest.” 

“ I will not touch his money,” whispered Sue, quivering 
i| like a creature under torture. 

It is to be supposed that in the course of his five-and-thirty 
t adventurous years Boyle had fought his way out of some 
awkward corners. “ Hit first, hit quick, hit hard, and keep 
! hitting,” was the sum of his simple philosophy, and in practice 
; it had served him passably ; action and energy being of such 
price in a world lying in its sloths and timidities, that most 
men, and many events, yield to a vigorous onset, whether 
well-directed and rightly sanctioned or the reverse. 

But this battle was going against him. In another moment 
all would be lost : reputation, standing, influence, the counten- 
ance of those who reckoned. The dog’s life of the marked 
man lay before him, of him who knows, and whose fellows 
know, that he is deep in his Commander’s black book, of him 
who is never mentioned in a despatch, nor seconded for pro- 
motion, nor accorded brevet rank, nor granted leave. With 
this grim vista of disgrace opening before him there was yet. 
1 time for a counter-stroke. Before doom was pronounced he 
\ would make a virtue of necessity, and, faith, the girl might 
have been a worse one. He admired her in spite of the ill- 
turn she had done him. Her sword-play had been better 
than he had reckoned upon ; she had touched him here, and 
here again ; he had been fain to break ground, and had barely 
saved worse by a smashing stroke below the knee. But in 
delivering that blow his weapon had snapped, he had wounded 
her, but stood before his enemy disarmed and in danger of being 
run through (thus the hot fancy of the swordsman figured his 


286 


CRISIS 


plight). “ Quick ! ye are a lost man ilse, Con Boyle ; lep in 
under yer inimy’s guard and take her in yer ar’rms ! ” 

“ Your Excellency,” he exclaimed, stooping somewhat from 
his full height and getting the least little tremble into his 
voice, for the man was no mean actor, “ I am overwhilmed 
with confusion ; I am shocked at mysilf. I confiss my folly, 
my heartluss conduct ; I have treated the leedy like a damned 
villain ; yes, like an infevnallee damned villain ! Let her 
beauty and me passions be my sole excuse. Look at me, sir : 
a man is not enjued by his Maker with the stringth of a bull 
and the currudge of a lion, without compinsating deficts. 
That’s me ! I have sinned ; but what compinsation is 
poss’ble I’ll make.” He crossed the room and dropped upon 
his knee before the injured girl. “ I will marry her this day. 
Sue, my dear, let the past be past : ye have followed me across 
sea and land to claim the protiction of my name.” 

This was the moment of Sue’s greatest peril ; the four men 
held their breaths. To the Governor and to Furley the pro- 
posal seemed a solution of the difficulty ; to Chisholm, its 
brazen effrontery was a crowning insult. To Sue’s sore heart 
and throbbing head it heaped confusion upon confusion. One 
word of his rhodomontade pricked down to memory and stung 
her to effective protest and resolve. 

“ No,” she wailed, withdrawing her dress from his contact. 
“ ‘ Protection ? ’ You said so before ! No, never ! ” (Oh, but 
the golden voice was flat and dead ; she turned from him as 
one might turn from an alien corpse ; her face and her appeal 
was to the Governor.) “ Sir, do not make me. I cannot. It 
seems fitty, for I came all the way here asking and praying for 
nothing better. You see I trusted him up to ten minutes 
ago. When he left me I excused it as his misfortune. He 
had been telling me overnight of married people separated by 
instant calls of the service. ’Twas heart-breaking, but I 
bore up, and God sent me friends, this good soul, Master 
Furley. I ne’er knew my father, but I think he was a good 
man, and like Master Furley. When no letter came I blamed 
the post, and the landlady, who put me to the door and kept 
my clothes. Then, when I knew from my friend (Oh, and he is a 
friend !) how my husband had sailed for Gibraltar, I resolved to 
follow. But it seems — how I cannot understand — that he had 
not sailed, or only by a later convoy, for we saw one another 
at sea, quite close ; we knew one another ; our eyes met and 
he — he was angered at seeing me. That look was cruel hard 
to bear, but I told myself that it was not me but my company 
that he disliked : all should be explained when we met. 

" And we did meet, just now — in the rooip out there — and — 
and ye saw — and heard, sir. * She heaved a dry sob. He 


THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS 287 

would have beat me if we had been alone ; that I’d forgive ; 
he has beaten me before. (Yes, sir, ye know ye have, and 
I forgave ye.) But, his eyes, his face, and his wicked lies ! 
. . . Do not ask me, my lord, I cannot. Whilst I thought 
| I was his wedded wife I could bear and pardon everything, 
but it seems I am not ; I am nothing. He owns he deceived 
me ; I am ruined. God, who is just and very pitiful, they say, 
will judge between us. Oh, it hurts so. I don’t know myself. 
I loved ye, sir. ’Twas heart’s delight to wait upon ye, to 
obey ye, to watch ye cross the room. ’Tis all gone now. 
Something is gone that used to be here ” — her little hand pressed 

I her side — “ I kept it warm for him all these months, ’twas my 
heart’s love for ye, Mr. Tighe ; when ’twas cold and feeble 
and seemed at point of death I nursed it back to life for ye, by 
' repeating your name — yours ! It would turn in its sleep and 
moan, and by and by would wake and crow and smile in my 
face again — my love for ye, sir, the one, only man I ever did 
; love, or ever shall ! ’Twas alive and moving but just now, 

I; but he has stabbed it to death with his wicked tongue and his 
cruel eyes. ’Tis dead, my lord, and that’s the end of it — and 
j of me, as I think. No, I’ll not marry him twice — I’m ‘no 
more use to him, I don’t love him. . . . Let me go away. . . . 
I want to die ! ” 

She had turned her back upon her enemy as she rose to 
\ reply, or, it might be, with the impulse of escape strong upon 
her, and stood leaning across the Governor’s table in the very 
posture of appeal, her little white hands — Sue had exquisite 
hands, clever, dainty, and small — pressed upon the green 
cloth ; she looked blankly at the King’s portrait upon the 
wall behind him as she spoke and ended with another dry 
sob. 

The Governor drummed the table with perplexed knuckles. 

“ ’Fore George, madam, I pity ye from my heart ; I can 
only approve your deceesion ; though what . . .’’he ended 
disconnectedly with more drumming ; then brusquely to 
Boyle, “Ye have your answer; ye may go,’’ and sucked in 
lips which must otherwise have said their say. >• * • - > , 

“ Sir George . . . your Excellency, grant me the poor favour 
of one small last word.” 

“ At your own risk, for the more ye say the deeper ye sink. 
Be short now.” 

“ Hear me out, if it please ye, Sir George, before ye con- 
demn me ; ’tis my own future that I am now considering, as an 
unworthy servant of His Majesty, and am bound to consider.” 
“ Cut it short, sir,” said the Governor, drumming. 

“ I will, sir. I call yourself to witness that my attimpt 
at reparation has been repulsed. I regret ut. ’Twas 


288 


CRISIS 


honustly mint. In the coorse of a soldier’s life I have on 
various occasions been hurried by my timperamint into re- 
grettable actions (as who has not that is worth the name of 
a man ?), but I have always — always, I repate — offered suitable 
satisfaction to the offinded party — to a man my sword, to 
a woman my hand in marriage.” 

The Governor’s short, harsh laugh, like the bark of a big 
dog, interrupted the speaker. “ Huh ! ye did, did ye ? Ma 
conscience, sir ! I hold that the five (or is it six ?) gentlemen 
whose blood is upon your hands have the least to curse ye 
for. What have ye done with your wives ? Now, go, in the 
devil’s name, whose most certainly ye are. And, hark ye, 
I wish never to see your face again save upon parade. Com- 
mend me to your Colonel, and request him, in my name, to 
send me his morning states by whom he will so that it be not 
by yourself ! ” 

Boyle drew himself up and saluted grandly ; he had re- 
gained composure and would act his part to the fall of the 
curtain, an honest man cruelly condemned for a trivial fault. 
He passed the door and ran the gauntlet of a watchful ante- 
room with a face of rock, all hell at work behind a mask. 
Hours later, when the first rage of the stripes sustained by his 
pride was lessening, and a congested brain was cooling and 
growing capable of rational thought, he picked up a London 
news-sheet brought by the fast Falmouth Packet, which had 
outsailed the convoy, and glanced down the paragraphs of 
personal news. The word Hollinghurst caught his eye. 
He read : 

“ The Will of the late Colonel Erasmus Hollinghurst of 
H.M. 1 2th Reg., who died and was buried at Gibraltar 
last Year, has been proved under Ten Thousand Pounds 
Personalty. The whole is devised without Trust and 
absolutely to the young and beautiful Widow of the late 
gallant Officer, who was in England at the time of his 
Death, on the sole Condition that she do spend an Hour 
beside his Grave within a Twelvemonth of his Decease. 
It is understood that Mrs. H., in dutiful compliance with 
the last Wish of her gallant Husband, sailed for Gibraltar 
by H.M.S. Paladin with the Falmouth Convoy this 
Month.” 

“ Tondher and turf ! ” gasped Boyle, and sprang to his 
feet, cursing his luck and wasted opportunities. At length 
he paused in his pacing of his room and addressed his own 
reflection in the glass. 

“ Con, ye gommeral, remimber yer manners ! Sthop 


THE SIN THATJ HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS 289 

blasphemin’ now, and be kapin’ to the point. Ye will not be 
skippin’ across the neutral ground to the Spaniards : the 
grub ’d poison ye, let alone the vermin. Nor to the Frinch. 
Ye will reserve yer fire. ’Tis one woman has bin the spoil of 
yez, ’tis another must mend ye. Yuss, a good match will set 
ye to rights, and the widow is the woman for the business. 
But ye must be quick upon the mark, for this morning’s work 
will be on its travels. ... Be the powers, I’ll do myself the 
honour of calling upon the leedy this day.” 

Students of what may be called the pathology of the human 
soul are agreed that there is a point beyond which a man’s 
better impulses cease to respond to the divine call. “ My 
Spirit shall not always strive with man ” is a disputable text, 
a dictum to divide and discept ; but in practice how goes it ? 
Throw over, if you will, the terminology and mechanism of 
the theologian, it comes to the same thing in the end ; the 
[ deliberately determined sinner reaches in his day’s saunterings 
the last fork of the downward track and bears to the left : 
j beyond this, say the saints, his angel, the white Presence who 
1 has attended him mournfully since childhood, refuses to 
follow ; certes, he goes on more swiftly and lightly, and is 
never more troubled with momentary misgivings. It is to be 
supposed that this was the final crisis with Major Cornelius 
Boyle. 




19 


CHAPTER III 


THE FINDING OF SUSAN 


The ten majors watched their unpopular comrade leave. 
Comment was needless, the man’s face bewrayed him. 

A little later the door opened, the lady appeared, closely 
veiled, her hand within the arm of the burly sea captain. 
The young civilian with a touch of the military set-up followed 
closely with a troubled face. The party passed the sentries 
pursued by ten pairs of curious eyes and much mute specula- 
tion, and the deferred business of the day began. But there 
was one man among them, our friend Wade Justin, who was 
upon thorns to be through with it and to follow that singularly 
associated trio and put his suspicions to the proof. 

After all, if this were indeed his ward, Miss Susan Agatha 
Travis, or Mrs. Boyle (any third alternative he scouted), had 
not her brother the first claim to her recognition ? Who 
was he, Justin, but a nameless stranger to her ? 

But where was Travis ? He missed him at his quarters, 
heard news of him at the South Port, and again, and later, at 
the Ragged Staff, and ran into him at the Mole Head paying 
off a Catalan boatman. (The youngster had been laying 
gunnery marks for his battery.) 

“ Keep your man, Travis,” cried Justin a little breathlessly, 
for he had walked fast in the heat. f ‘ Oh, I am well, never 
better, I thank ye ! — And yourself, my lad ? No news ? " 

“ None, sir. No women came by the convoy save those 
upon the strengths. Oh, I don’t reckon the Paladin's. There 
was talk of a beer-ship, but I can make nothing of it, nor get 
her name. She is not in harbour, anyway.” 

u A brig, or snow, was taken by the Riff-men in the fog, 
did ye hear ? ” 

u Oh, that cock-and-bull story of the Snorter's First luff ? 
He was drunk, or dreaming. I’m not going to let myself 

believe that. You couldn't , Major. Why, he^says he saw ” 

I know — I know — a woman among them — but ” 

“ Your pardons, senors, but is it the brig Marie that you 


290 


THE FINDING OF SUSAN 


291 


seek ? She wass take, but haf make escape. She brought 
up las’ night. She lie — so — - — ” The Catalan boatman was 
speaking : he raised a brown hand and pointed to the Mary of 
Yarmouth. 

It further appeared that a boat-party had gone aboard her 
not two hours since. “ Her capitan, a younger senor and a 
senorita, a miladi — why, yaas.” 

“ Set us on board her, my lad. Travis, this grows warm,” 
he passed a handkerchief across a steaming brow. “ Nay, 
boy, I can’t tell ye what I mean, — I daren’t tell — I won't tell ! 
Wait and see.” 

The young Scot had followed the lady down to the boat, 
going as in a dream, or as a man goes in liquor. He did not 
return the salute of the sentry, who detected an officer in 
mufti, and muttered to himself as he went, ■ - What haf I 
seen ? Did I see it ? There wass neffer a Chisholm of 
Kinloch Shin that wass taisch yet. It comes from the mother’s 
side, the Mackenzies, gin it cam’ at a’. But, for sure, I saw 
the muckle reid man ben the hoose there with a whitish thing 
aneaih his neb, as though he wass new-lathered by the barber. 
And when I luiked again it wass awa’ ! An’ then I luiked and 
saw his mou’ wide and fu’ o’ sawdust (wass it ?). I dinna ken 
juist what it wass, but it wasna the parritch ; and again it 
wass awa’. And then I saw masel’ at a tow’s end, whilk same 
is a sair unchancey thing to hae seen, gin indeed ’twas masel’, 
as I misdoot it wass. Wass it ma weird ? Aweel,” throwing 
his shoulders back, “ we are a’ of us in the hands o’ the guid 
God, and ma faither’s son wull juist be daein’ his duty, fa’ 
what may.” 

The boy accompanied the two on board, which was question- 
able ; he should by rights have reported himself first, but 
what would you ? He was deep in love, over head and ears 
in it, and was beset by conflicting duties and irreconcilable 
claims. Thus, King George came first, no doubt, but His 
Majesty maun bide a wee, for was there not a rascal to be 
called to account, the lady’s betrayer ? Yet, how ? An en- 
sign cannot send a friend to a major ; nor could he make a 
song about the cause of his quarrel with the man ; the lady’s 
name must be protected. Therefore this, too, must lie over. 
And the third and infinitely the most difficult duty was to- 
wards the lady herself. This morning’s catastrophe had 
overset her plans. What would be her alternative ? That 
she was an orphan he already knew, and that scene in the 
Park, fresh in his memory (and in hers), had shown him the 
depth of her destitution. Nobody, so far as he knew, awaited 
her in England. No, here she was, thrown adrift on a pitiless 


292 


CRISIS 


world, penniless, as he supposed, friendless, and without a 
legal right even to the name she bore. It must not be. Tis 
too soon (he was saying to himself), yet, it must be now or 
never, for this brig would be discharging cargo, and making for 
some other port. Mistress Susan, a lady, a girl of birth and 
breeding, must not be beholden like a waif, a stowaway, to a 
tarry-breeks ship’s skipper for bed and biscuit for the rest of 
her life. ’Twas unthinkable. 

So he would take his chance of rebuke for delayed com- 
pliance with orders to rejoin, would risk everything to serve 
her. He would see her back upon shipboard (her only home, 
think of it !), and before night make his adieux, speak out 
what was in his heart, or remain mute, as God should will 
and the occasion prompt. 

He helped her up the side ; she climbed less lightly than her 
wont — the heart was like lead within her that day, and yet, it 
seemed to the lad, that stilly as she sate, and dowie as she 
moved, his lady was aware of his presence and would rather 
that he were there than away. 

Furley, penitent over his explosion, and trying in vain to 
recall what “ language ” his heat had betrayed him into using, 
maintained a ponderous silence on board the boat, and upon 
reaching the Mary went below, leaving the poop to the two 
youngsters. They paced it side by side as their sea-custom 
had taught them ; he too keenly conscious of his fast-passing 
privileges to hasten matters, to say the word which must make 
or break him ; she contemplating a ruined scheme of things, 
picking up and laying down, sorting and piecing fragments 
of broken purposes. So neither spoke, although they had 
trodden the short planking between the break and the tiller 
twenty times. 

Then Sue turned from him as they turned, and, gazing 
bitterly at the Rock, as upon the countenance of a false friend 
from whom much had been expected but who had failed her 
utterly, sighed and dropped her eyes upon the small white 
fingers laid athwart the port rail. Her wedding-ring ! Its 
soft yellow gleam had now a new and sinister association. 
With a hard sob she wrenched it from her finger, and with a 
moan of anguish raised her hand and flung it overside. It 
struck the port brace of the main-yard and rebounded tinkling 
upon the deck behind her. Chisholm stooped and recovered 
it : he remained kneeling, pressing it reverently to his lips. 

The girl saw him through springing tears, and turned upon 
him with a sort of imperious tenderness. 

“ No, sir, give it to me. ’Tis not yours.” 

“ Mine till deith, madam — till deith. Yes, Susan, for I 
maun name ye that the noo.” 


THE FINDING OF SUSAN 


293 

She stood, catching her breath, a new light (of wonder, 
was it ?) in troubled eyes still swimming in. tears. “ Oh no, 
sir ; no, sir. Ye don’t know what ye say. But it is good 
of ye to pity me. Your kindness, yes, from the first, has gone 
to the heart of me. I shall never meet, I have never met. 
But — I took ye for a friend, sir ; let be my hand, if ye please — 
just for a friend, like our good Master. Ah, do not spoil it 
all.” 

“ And can I no’ be aye yer frien’, Susan ? What mair 
think ye I’m speiring ? (Oh, Mr. Chisholm, Mr. Chisholm !) 
Why else am I come aboard wi’ ye ? Ye canna pass the lave 

o’ yer life in a ship’s wame ” He controlled himself, 

relinquished the ring, rose, and awaited his lady’s pleasure, 
wise in time. This was not his moment, and the lad had the 
wit to see as much and to wait. 

For the woman was in the nadir of reaction. She had 
made her forced march, offered battle, fought and — lost. 

Gray-haired generals in like case have been known to give 
way to the passion of tears. Young Frederick (not then 
“ The Great ”) in similar circumstances lost his head, galloped 
from the field that was by no means so lost as he feared, and 
was found later by his victorious subordinates miles to the 
rear in the depths of depression. Conceive the heart-breaking 
collapse of the architect whose cathedral nave has fallen in ; 
of painter, or poet, or playwright whose consummate effort 
has been damned ; of the young counsel whose first and 
crucial case is nonsuited on account of an initial oversight 
of his own. Bitter are the feelings of these, and for an hour or 
so they will find themselves calling upon the rocks to cover 
them from the pitying eyes of the successful. Yet are their 
cases retrievable. But not so hers whose feet have been 
betrayed into that blind alley of the affections — a marriage 
j which is no marriage. 

She was inwardly rebelling against her fate. She stopped and 
looked at the man beside her, finding her heart quiet and 
dead within her and all the wheels of life run down. 

No, this was not time to plead his cause, to confess his 
love, and claim the right to stand between the girl and the 
world. And as he straightened his face a shoreboat ran 
alongside and a man of his own age, a man in uniform, came 
over the side, reached the poop and approached, bowing. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir, may I ask if ” 

But Susan, whose face had been averted, turned sharply. 
“ Dray ! ” she cried, and brother and sister rushed into one 
another’s arms. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE END OF THE QUEST. THE MAJOR AS GUARDIAN, AND THE 
ENTANGLING OF FRESH THREADS 

“So it all came right in the end,” or rather, as this was not 
the end, the bark of Susan’s fortune had achieved a pro- 
visional and incomplete equilibrium, satisfactory only so far 
as it went, in that she had regained her brother, had found, 
or been found by, a guardian not more faithful indeed, or 
more devoted than her rugged old seafarer, but better suited 
to her condition, and with resources more adequate to her 
comfort and welfare than a stuffy locker-bunk upon a trading 
brig. 

The little cabin of the Mary of Yarmouth was the scene of 
solemn conclaves, discussions of plans, and productions of 
documents. Susan could vouch for her brother, her brother in 
turn vouched for Justin, whom Furley presently recognised as 
his staunchest seconder in the sea-fight in the Mozambique 
Channel. Into their hands the great-hearted mariner sorrow- 
fully surrendered his delightful shipmate, and after a tender 
leave-taking, piteous in its dumb pathos, sailed away for Port 
Mahon, Minorca, to the garrison of which (then) British 
possession he had cargo to deliver. 

A lodging on shore was procured for Susan. Her guardian, 
adequate as usual, placing her in the house and charge of the 
same lady to whom he had recommended Mrs. Hollinghurst. 
This was one result of holding unexceptionable testimonials, 
and of having won the confidence of those influential ladies 
on board the Paladin. Mrs. Trigge’s sympathies were enlisted ; 
she promised to call : a point scored. 

“ And really, Mrs. Lamb,’’ said our friend, addressing the 
lady of the little old Spanish house in Prince Frederic Street, 
which was to be the home of his ward, to whose private ear 
he judged it best to confide the story of her innocent mis- 
fortunes, “ I hardly know how you are to address the poor 

294 




THE END OF THE QUEST 295 

child. Mrs. Boyle she is not ; Mrs. Tighe she was made by 
what she and her witness believed at the time to be a legal 
marriage, but which the other party to it repudiates. ’Tis 
painful to revert to her maiden name, but I fear it must be 
done. Call her plain Susan as much as ye can, eh ? Ye will 
allow me to look in upon her sometimes, I trust ? — if Mrs. 
Hollinghurst will not object ? ” 

The widow protested that she would always be more than 
delighted to see Major Justin, and was apparently speaking the 
truth. Mrs. Lamb, who had learned that the little man stood 
high in the Governor’s good graces and was a person of mark 
and experience, was equally gracious. 

“ I told ’em nothing about the child’s means, Travis. Ye 
see with me that whilst this unfortunate marriage hangs in 
the wind, the less we say about them the better. Your sister 
will be amply provided for, but need know nothing at present. 
To advertise her fortune might bring that fellow Boyle upon 
the scene again, or, if not him, another. By the by, what sort 
is that young Scot whom we found with her, comforting her, 
or so*it looked ? ” 

“ Chisholm is an uncommon good sort, sir. My sister says 
so ; but ye will be thinking poor little Sue is not much of a 
judge. Still, the fellow behaved well to her on board, and 
before he sailed. That guinea in the Park was a godsend ; 
it may even have saved her very life. Who knows ? Mr. 
Furley, who seems shrewd, spoke heartily of the man. I am 
growing intimate with him ; he has a warm corner in his heart 
for Susan, I fancy, but has said nothing to her or to me. He 
is poor, a quiet-living man, a linguist, and a keen soldier. 
Would ye permit me to introduce him to ye ? ” 

“ Certainly, as soon as ye like. Chisholm, d’ye call him ? 
I knew a man of the name in India — I wonder ? If so, we have 
common ground.” 

Meanwhile how went things with Boyle ? We took leave of 
him in act of deciding to lay siege to the moneyed widow with 
whose affections he had thoughtlessly trifled on the voyage, 
but whom he now recognised as well worth winning. The 
adventurer’s instinct had for once been at fault. He would 
repair his misused opportunities by prompt and assiduous 
court. 

But by sheer chance the man’s first two calls at the little 
house in Prince Frederic Street were unsuccessful : upon each 
occasion Mrs. Hollinghurst happened to be walking or engaged. 

At his third attempt he encountered Mrs. Trigge at the 
doorstep, and passed on without betraying any interest in 
the house — a lucky escape, as he judged. 


296 CRISIS 

Upon his fourth coming the door was opened to him by — 
Susan. 

Husband and wife stood for a moment face to face, he in 
the street, she within the entry, hasp in hand. The almost 
limitless effrontery of the Irishman was for once at fault ; for 
the life of him he could invent no excuse for his appearance. 
To give to the wronged woman before him the name of the 
other, the widow, presumably her friend and house-mate, as 
the object of his call, would be ruinous to his suit. His rocky 
face flushed with a sudden heat of curbed vexation, chagrin, 
apprehension. Was his life to be perpetually crossed by 
this chit of a girl ? How came she there ? How much had 
she told of her history, and of his ? He stood like an oaf, 
irresolute, reduced to a shamed silence, perused at their sad 
leisure by those grave, loveless eyes, which passed over him, 
wondering how they could ever have been interested in him. 

This was the burial of love. 

The man was by far the more painfully embarrassed of the 
two. It was as though some bird’s-nesting boy, having climbed 
to the hole of a stockdove, should find under his hand, not the 
eggs which he sought, but the white, dry skeleton of last 
year’s mother-bird. 

“ Who is it ? Did I hear a knock ? Are you there, Susan ?” 
It was the voice of Mrs. Hollinghurst from within, and Susan 
replied without emotion, “ Just a person who has come to the 
wrong house, dear.” 

The door closed upon him. He turned in haste. Thence- 
forth he felt that the little Spanish house was locked and 
barred against him. His suit must be prosecuted in the 
public gardens, where the lady and her hostess, Mrs. Lamb, 
might be expected to take the air of evenings. 

But if Susan should accompany them ? He could only 
hope that Susan would not, and, as it turned out, she did not. 
It was the discarded wife that proved his best ally in the 
adventurer’s last attempt to rehabilitate his fortunes at the 
expense of a woman’s heart. 

Her house-mates had gone through Sue’s wardrobe, ad- 
miring its abundance and the solid excellence of its material. 
In all that the natural woman needs, the outfit provided by 
good old Hippisley and designed by his Jemima, was perfect 
in its way. But it was the way of the Quakers. Such of it 
as was intended to take the eye was amazing to the ladies, 
who cried out upon it, exclaiming that no gentlewoman, that 
no person, indeed, above the degree of a serving-maid could 
possibly be seen in those frocks. Whoever saw such skimpy 
widths, and such cutting ! For what manner of women were 
§uch things intended ? Skirts ? These were no skirts at all. 


THE END OF THE QUEST 297 

; but petticoats worn outside. So straight, so shapeless, and 
1 such utter absence of lace, of flounces, of buttons, bugles, 
I and beads — of mode. 

“ Child, these will never do. For a lane, now, or for a 
i buttercup meadow, perhaps — though in what part of what 
j country they would pass the Lord only knows ! It must be 
! where there are no men (or women).” More notes of excla- 
j mation, more adjectives, finally the one word too many, 
i and the gentle patience of the owner of the treasures thus 
derided was exhausted. 

“ Mrs. Lamb, dear, and you too, Julia dear, I do just want 
1 you to understand that these things were given me — given, 
i mind, when I had but what I stood in, by the kindest and 
I sweetest friends I ever had in all my life. You don’t mean it, 
I know, but you hurt me. I wore frocks like these for months 
j in London — think ! And I will wear just these and no others. 

Oh, I know very well, ma’am, that I cannot go upon the street 
j with you in them ; but I can go alone, or with my brother. 

‘ The men will not look at me ? ’ Indeed, I do not want 
j; the men to be looking at me.” And, fearing to say all that 
I she felt, Sue left the room. 

The others smiled upon one another, amused and abashed. 

“ And, really, my dear, ’tis no use saying that the men will 
not look at her ; ’twould be wiser to tell her that with those 
things on her back she will be mobbed in the Alameda 
Though ’tis mere truth that with such a face and such a 
j figure the poor girl may wear what she will and yet be ad- 
mired. All the same, it would be monstrous inconvenient 
for you to be seen with her, for your styles would not suit in 
the least. 

“ Just a little more in the light, if ye please. So — we must 
[ have the thing hang straight, mustn’t we ? Those bones 
! will need care, my dear, and occasional adjustment. But 
! patience does it. Oh, ye will get them all staring, never fear, 
and set the mode, if I know anything about it. But ye must 
not, and cannot, appear with poor Susan in those frocks.” 

Indeed no. A woman making her debut in a new society 
cannot be too careful as to whom she stands with upon her 
first appearance. Our Susan was sweet by nature, gentle in 
mind and manners, delightful and considerate as a house-mate ; 
biddable, in a word ; but the inadequacy, or rather the singu- 
larity of her attire unfitted her for the public companionship 
of ladies aspiring to be thought fashionable. Susan, in the 
simplicity of her Quaker frocks (and the freshness of her 
beauty), would have been too striking a foil to the maturer 
charms and more daring costumes of Mrs. Hollinghurst. 

And what, think you, was this new and surprising creation, 


CRISIS 


298 

the very latest Paris fashion of the spring of 1779, which the 
charming widow was preparing to introduce to the ladies of 
the garrison ? 

Attend ye, my gentle readers ; lithe and listen, ye ladies, 
and prepare to be astonished. Clear your imagination of 
farthingale, hoop, and pannier, for the structure which I essay 
to describe was a thing by itself, a vagary, an eccentricity, 
the comet of a season, that flashed parabolically and passed, 
and has (mercifully) never reappeared. From a stout waist- 
band two strong whalebone rods, one upon either hand, 
curved outward and downward, reaching to within an inch 
of the ground some two-and-a-half feet to right and left of 
the wearer’s ankles. This pair of antennae supported and 
extended a breadth of silken petticoat, which was a matter of 
five feet from side to side, but merely nine inches or so from 
back to front. Thus the skirt, but what of the body ? This 
was a modification of the male cutaway, open, of course, to 
reveal a low-cut bodice, faced with bright silk and tailed 
amazingly, for two slender, whip-like extensions, lined with 
silk en suite, and in strong contrast to the petticoat, hung 
down behind to the very hem of the skirt, rippling and twisting 
in the wind as the wearer walked or drove lightly before a 
following breeze, even as some gallant sloop runs free with 
her mainsail square to port and her spinnaker boomed out 
to starboard, her split pennant accompanying her movement 
with a vivid and graceful life of its own. 

Whether this mode — the invention of young Queen Marie 
Antoinette’s favourite modiste — would prove convenient or 
permanent (it was neither) had nothing to do with the plea- 
surable anticipations cherished by Mesdames Lamb and 
Hollinghurst. It was new, and they alone of their sex as re- 
presented upon Gibraltar possessed the patterns. Did their 
rivals admire or decry mattered not a jot, at least they should 
see and should wonder. 

This, then, was the secret which was engrossing the waking 
thoughts and the nimble fingers of dear, frivolous, little Julia 
Hollinghurst, a kindly, unoccupied creature, well-meaning and 
harmless, but at present untouched by any nobler issue. 

The day arrived when the work was finished, thanks to 
Susan’s deft co-operation ; for the girl had no scruples against 
decking her friend in any fineries she was willing to wear. 
The result was astonishing, even when exhibited within the 
narrow limits of the Prince Frederic Street sitting-room. 
Have you ever watched some fine, strong-winged butterfly, 
a Swallowtail, say, or Painted Lady, alight upon a sun-warmed 
bench to strut sedately, carrying its exquisitely enamelled 
vanes at nicely adjusted angles, tacitly aware of its loveliness, 


299 


THE END OF THE QUEST 

as one must imagine, and in excellent conceit of its beautifully 
apparelled self and the warm world about it ? Thus did Mrs. 
Hollinghurst poise, and turn, and gravely pirouette before 
her mirror, whilst her friends laughed and "clapped soft little 
palms in delight at the result of their joint efforts. 

Later, when the heat of the day was over and the sea-wind 
had cooled south-fronting walls, Mrs. Lamb would have her 
guest off to the public promenade for her first introduction 
to garrison society, a demure, slow-pacing, reticent, rustling 
wonder, regarded by all. 

Meanwhile, Susan, no gorgeous vanessa nor gold-dusted 
papilio, but, rather, one of your bright-eyed, delicately shaded 
Mountain Ringlets, her hand within her brother’s arm, was 
pacing a little-frequented path high above the town. The 
weather was perfect, the outlook noble beyond power of 
description, for the view from the Rock is one of the great 
land- and sea-scapes of the world. Below them lay the Bay, 
dotted with English shipping ; at their feet was the long, white 
line of the new curtain wall. There, to the south across the 
Strait, arose the lofty crest of Apes Hill ; those white specks 
across the water to westward were the houses of Algebras, 
soon to be the base of operations for the siege just beginning. 
Northward the low heathery ridges ran down to the sands of 
the isthmus, where, unknown to young Travis, the local 
Migueletes had that day been replaced by Spanish regulars. 
The game was begun. 

Brother and sister had as yet seen but little of one another 
save in company, and had much to hear and to tell. Their 
tongues went gaily. The delight of being once more together 
engrossed them : the ever-fresh surprise of it ; the breath- 
arresting wonder of it ! Their youthful lives, that had kept 
step since their childhood, had recently, and without warning, 
been wrenched apart, and driven into waste places for a while : 
and now, again without warning, and without concurrence of 
theirs, to find themselves reunited once more was a bliss too 
keen for analysis ; it must just be enjoyed as it came. 

Hence it had naturally come about that whilst each had 
told the other his or her story of adventure, the tales had been 
told disconnectedly, and without method. Each, too, whilst 
guiltless of intentional concealment, had slipped lightly over 
the dark days which were done with, trouble and disgrace, 
to dwell with delight upon brighter and more pleasing incidents. 
Travis could have drawn a plan of the house in Catherine 
Court, and felt that he would have recognised Hippisley and 
J asper had he met them upon the street, whilst Sue had heard 
at least half a dozen times of what had passed in Lord 
Duddingstone’s cabinet and Mother Lea’s cottage. Of just 


300 


CRISIS 


what had occurred upon Sandylane Hill she did not know, 
nor, in truth, was Travis himself oversure of the incidents. 
Nor had she told him more than the bare outline of her 
marriage. That the man now serving as Major Boyle in 
Hardenberg’s Hanoverians, but then passing as Tighe, had ! 
gone through a ceremony of marriage with his sister was 
known to Travis (and bitterly, if silently resented, we may be 
sure). Justin had had it over with Furley, and had learned j 
from him, and from the girl, that Boyle now repudiated the j 
ceremony. So much Travis knew, and more, that every 
attempt upon the part of Hippisley, and his ally, the rector, 
had failed to identify the officiating parson or to establish 
the fact that such a man was in orders. He had heard J ustin 
allude to the “ lines ” as a wholly informal document, drawn 
up after the ceremony was over and the principals had left, 
and unsigned by either ; and with a young man’s impatience 
of failure had never asked to see the paper, nor, as it happened, 
had the name of the pseudo-cleric been mentioned in his 
presence. Why should it have been ? Competent persons 
upon the spot had exhausted the possibilities in that direction. 
Nor, for his sister’s sake, was he over-anxious that the fact 
of the marriage should be established. The more he heard 
of Boyle the less he relished him as a possible husband for 
his sister. They were better apart : and in this her legal 
guardian concurred. 

So, on cool evenings when off duty he would walk and chat 
with her in the unfrequented mountain paths of the great 
peninsular fortress, hearing her little tongue run happily. 
Whatever his trouble or his triumph he kept it to himself. 
This was his sister’s hour, her holiday. 

That evening the girl was brimful of the joy of life ; the 
wonderful fabric was finished, thanks largely to herself ; 
all three had worked double tides upon its details in the hot 
little house, but the ultimate stitch had been set at last, and 
the two chiefly concerned had sailed forth triumphantly for 
an evening of conquests, leaving Sue to enjoy a quiet stroll 
with her brother. A stroll ? The girl was in the mood for a 
ramble, a clamber. Her system had accommodated itself to 
the shore life again, her ears had ceased to listen for the thump 
and gurgle of water beneath the counter, and the land no 
longer heaved beneath her feet. The insistent grip of her 
personal trouble was relaxing, she was splendidly well and in 
need of exercise : her spirits rose and would hardly let her 
keep the rational pace her companion set, she would have run ! 

“ Dray, what an old sobersides you are to-night ! Cheer 
up ! What is the matter with you ? And why are you come 
so late?” 


THE END OF THE QUEST 301 

“ Perhaps because I have come all the way from Europa 
Point. We are making a battery of heavy metal down there. 
In some winds the current brings ships close in. Matter ? 
Is anything the matter ? ” he laughed quietly, easily, thinking 
of something which had delayed him a few minutes from his 
tryst, something which he could not discuss with her ; a 
folded paper which was at this moment within his breast, a 
cartel, which, however, was no longer a cartel ; a pistol, one 
might compare it to, which in the act of discharge had blown 
out its breech, and wounded its owner, and had been left in 
the hands of the man at whom it had been pointed. 

“ And oh, Dray, I got such a start yesterday ! I met a 
man in the street, a soldier, who looked hard at me for a 
moment (’twas that which made me look at him), and oh, 
i would you believe it, he was exactly like the clergyman who 
; married me ? No, it was not fancy — I don’t mean to say it 
was the man, because it couldn’t be, this was only a common 
i soldier and he was the curate of the parish, you see (we 
never could find him again, but, by the way he read the 
service, any one could tell what he was). But this man yester- 
day had the same long nose, and the same little chin, and 
white hair. ( He had a wig, you know, that night.) Now, 
j wasn’t it strange ? And he looked as if he knew me for a 
\ moment.” 

“ Oh, Goosey ! what imaginations girls must have : a long 
: nose and a short chin and a white head, and you have a 
parson at once ! Why, up to last night there must have been 
hundreds of such in garrison ; to-day not one, and why ? 

; The Governor has forbid hair-powder by order. So good- 
i bye to Sukey’s rascally curate ! ** 

They stopped and approached the edge of the track they 
were following, a narrow gradient with a low parapet over- 
grown with prickly pear (below Pocoroco it runs, and just 
! above the old artillery magazines), and gazed in silence over 
the water of the anchorage, over which a momentary catspaw 
was playing, turning the glossy surface to the hues of a dove’s 
neck. They had thought themselves entirely alone, remote 
\ and free, but, as they stood thus mutely enjoying the beauty 
j of the evening, a voice just below them broke out into song : 

“ And, sooth to say, no belted knight 
Who wore on heel a spur. 

Could keep his seat, nor stand upright 
Save Sir John Gardiner. 

Ne’er shall we see his match again, 

None like him now there be, 

Who drank to death two aldermen 
And Oxford tailors three.” 


302 


CRISIS 


This mock-heroic, bacchanalian ballad should have 
sung to a tableful of jolly fellows in festive guise, and to a 
saucy air, and seemed ludicrously out of place and ill-rendered 
when droned to a lugubrious chant ending with a melancholy 
snuffle. 

“ H’st ! What’s this ? ” whispered Travis, lifting a finger 
and craning over the needled greenness of the parapet. “ That 
is a song they would sing at wines in the House ; there must 
be one of us down there, and I fancy I have heard that voice 
somewhere.” 

That an Oxonian, a Christ Church man too, should have I 
had to take the shilling moved the lad’s heart to pity : he 
manoeuvred to obtain a peep at the singer. There, just 
beneath them, in a recess of the rock, was a small magazine, ! 
guarded by a single sentry ; the man, seen from directly , 
above him, was all hat and shoulder-straps, but by following 
the path they would come upon him at close quarters. 

As they turned the angle the lonely man, drooping despond- 
ently over his musket in some homesick reverie, jumped 
alertly to attention at the apparition of an officer, and presented 
his arm. The ensign saluted, failed to recognise, and was | 
passing, when he was conscious of a change in his sister’s 
step and an added pressure of her hand within his arm, and, 
following her glance, saw close beside him, emerging as from 
a mist, the unforgotten features of Tavy Baskett. He checked, 
arresting the half-completed salute ; the old school-fellows 
faced one another ; the Ensign’s brows and mouth a-workwith 
mixed emotions — perplexity, pity, wonder, and the sudden 
inrush of half-realised and unwelcome possibilities. The 
long nose, pursed-up mouth, and runaway chin of his ancient 
tyrant were drawn and sharpened by fear of recognition : 
the heavy musket which, in accord with military regulation, 
he still retained at the present, shook in his hands. The 
Ensign bade the man stand at ease and drew a slow breath, 
considering the position. 

Here was a mighty inconvenient proximity. Granted the 
facts of a royal pardon and commission, still it is not to a 
man’s advantage whilst holding the latter to be known to have 
been in a position to need the former. If this were the case 
of the officer, that of the private was worse ; for, as Travis 
remembered, a warrant had been issued for this fellow’s 
apprehension ; and to judge from his haggard countenance, 
the wretch had enlisted to evade it, and still went in fear of 
arrest. 

“Tavy! How came ye here?” said Travis at length, 
with compassion in his voice, and too occupied with his 
discovery to observe his sister’s agitation. The sentry’s 



been 


THE END OF THE QUEST 303 

lips remained closed, his eyes blinked and shifted, the poor 
fellow was trusting to silence for protection as defenceless 
woodland creatures feign death in their emergencies. But 
it was not the anger of the handsome young officer, once his 
fag, that he feared to draw down upon himself by speech. 
Travis spoke again. 

“ But we heard ye were drowned. I saw it in the News. 
Lord Duddingstone spoke of it with real concern. How in 
the world came ye to this pass ? Did ye not know that all 
the things were restored ? ,l Still no answer. “ Man, I 
bear ye no malice,” cried Travis, with just a touch of hauteur. 
‘ ‘ What ye did by the roadside I make sure ye were mighty 
unwilling to do ; nor do I know just what ye did, nor what 
befell me. As it came about ye were upon my side after all, 

1 whatever ye thought at the time, for here I stand, a sound 
man, as ye see. It pleased God to spare my life and His 
Majesty to grant me a pardon. I could have stood your 
friend in England had I but known where ye lay ; and might 
stand your friend here.” 

And still there was no answer. The man might be at ease 
in a military sense, but assuredly in no other : his duty 
: chained him to his post, or he would have run. Twice whilst 
j Travis was speaking he made an involuntary effort to salute, 
and would, if he could, have hidden his face. As for expression, 
the countenance bore none beyond the pitiably made-up face 
common to old soldiers of indifferent character, and to long- 
term convicts ; there was the pinching together and hardening 
of all the features, the deprecatory grin mingling with the modi- 
fied and humble scowl, the corded jaw and creased, unsteady 
eye. Behind such a mask as this your jail-bird and hard 
bargain alike are wont to endure with thumping heart the 
brow-beatings and scarifying personalities of the fiend in 
authority. 

Travis, although young to the service, knew that expression, 
and could guess of what experiences it was the outcome, and 
against what grisly possibilities this dumb mask was the last 
poor defence. He could see that the man was afraid ; and 
supposing himself to be the object of his fears, it vexed him 
to feel this and to find his good intentions distrusted. After 
a moment’s pause he drew from his pocket a couple of dollars 
and a bladder-pouch of tobacco. “ Ah, well, Tavy, I am 
not upon duty, and know not whether I do right in address- 
ing a sentry. At least I’ll not presume upon my rank ; ’tis 
far from my wish to force my acquaintance upon any ; nor 
to make a man speak who prefers silence. But at least ye 
shall not escape some little token of my — what shall I say ? — 
goodwill. Take these from me, and when ye want me, 


304 CRISIS 

remember I am in garrison and would like, if I might, to serve 
ye, for old times’ sake.” 

At the sight of the gifts the man’s eyes blinked fast, filled 
and ran over ; his mouth relaxed ; he must have been very 
poor, and a stranger to the small indulgences prized by the 
common soldier. With the water trickling down his cheeks 
he involuntarily broke silence, as it seemed, with hoarsely 
muttered thanks. 

“ Heaven bless you, Travis ! — sir, I mean — ” blubbered 
the poor creature, knuckling away his tears. “ I c-can’t help 
it, ’tis the first k-kind w-word s-since — since my f-fall.” 

Do a kindness, pardon an injury, and upon the instant 
one’s deed, however hard it seemed in the doing, and however 
golden in its quality, dwindles to a humiliating insignificance. 
For a moment one has partaken of the nature of God, and 
has been, as a consequence, privileged to see oneself as He 
sees, and one’s holiest acts weighed in His balance. Compared 
to His vast enterprises, His illimitable beneficence, how 
microscopical, how meagre is one’s best ! 

Young Travis was undergoing this humbling but salutary 
experience. His old persecutor’s gratitude shamed him, he 
shrank from it, and from being the witness of a grown man’s 
tears. He moved on, too engrossed in memories aroused by 
this unlooked-for reappearance to be sensible of the increasing 
drag upon his arm and the silence of his sister. 

“ Unlucky devil ! he has come to the ground between two 
stools — the very ground. Sue, ye saw that poor wretch ? 
I was his fag at Shrewsbury, and he ill-used me ; I forgive 
him all that ; but when I was at my lowest, and upon the 
road, I met him again and engaged him to help me in the last 
piece of wickedness that I planned. ’Twas to take the purse 
of a big Irishman (I have clean forgot the fellow’s name) by 
the roadside south of a place called Malby Cross. There was 
a hill, as I remember, which he and this one were to alight 
and walk up, letting the coach get on ahead. I was to waylay 
them, and this poor tool was to assist me. He must have 
sold the thing, for I was shot and left upon the road, where, 
later in the day, Justin found me, and ye know the rest.” 

Both the girl’s hands were now upon his arm : she had half- 
turned, and was stammering with agitation. “ Malby Cross, 
ye said ? and an Irishman ? Was not his name Tighe, Dray ? 
And oh, when did this happen ? — the date, Dray ? Was it 
not the twelfth of December ? ” 

“ Tighe ? Yes, now I think of it, Tighe was his name, an 
officer lately in trouble at Chester. As for the date I am 
hazy, for I lost count, but you are almost to the day. But, 
Tighe ? — It was not your ? ’* 


THE END OF THE QUEST 305 

“ But it was ; it was indeed ! Oh, Dray, think of it, I was 
i walking beside that coach as it went forward ! How near we 
must have been ! (How close ! and not to know !) And 
j that soldierman back there, I thought I remembered his face. 

| It was he, then, who rode inside with us from near Chester. 

| (After the meeting with you he rode outside for some reason, 
I can guess for what reason, now !) ” She sighed, recalling 
the Major’s efforts at love-making during that journey, 
constantly baulked by the getting in of fresh passengers, but 
successful enough in the end. “ Yes ; that is the man, for sure, 
but when I was watching him just now I was puzzled in my 
I mind. He is wearing his hair unpowdered this evening, and like 
! that he reminded me of the melancholy young man who rode 
, inside with us, as I told ye, but when I met him in the street 
; with his hair in powder (oh, ’twas he to a certainty, for he knew 
me), then, I say, he reminded me of the curate who married me.’ 1 

“ Was he the curate ? Ye could never find the man again, 

! ye know ? ” 

“ What is this person’s name ? — not Baskett ? Mercy, 
but that was the clergyman’s very name, Dray ! ’tis on my 
i lines ; and this must be the man. And oh dear ! and oh dear ! 

1 — God pity me, for I’m not married after all — a common 
soldier ! ” Sue bent her face and wept. 

“ But, oh dear ! and oh dear ! and ye are married ! ” cried 
Travis, “ for this fellow was a parson at the time, and is one 
* still for ought that I know, for they didn’t unfrock him : he 
was given out to have drowned himself, and was never actually 
convicted of anything. ’Twas a rogue’s trick he served ye, 

■ my dear, and I’ll Come back with me, Sukey, and we’ll 

‘ have this out with his reverence. Goodness, but this half 
explains it. I could not conceive what there was about me to 
’ throw him into such a taking ; perhaps it was you whom he 
I feared ; but, again, why ? ” 

If the man had shown trepidation at their first interview, 
the prospect of a second almost threw him into panic. The 
quid which he was in act of rolling slipped from his fingers, 
he shifted his feet and twittered with terror as the brother 
and sister stopped before him. Travis spoke at once and 
1 sternly. 

“ Tavy, what is this that I’ve just heard ? Look at this 
lady.” But the ex-clergyman was already upon his knees 
deprecating the just wrath of the brother in tearful agonies 
of entreaty. 

“ None of this ! Get up ! ’ Shun ! ” cried Travis. 

Great is discipline. At the impulse of the all-compelling 
word soldierly habit lifted, the groveller to his feet and fixed 
him in the rigid posture of military attention, although his 

20 


CRISIS 


306 

throat worked spasmodically within its stock and tears still 
trickled. 

But for once Sue was moved to indignation. “ Oh, man, 
how could ye ? What harm did I ever do to ye that ye 
should serve me so ? ” 

The sight of his sister’s distress hardened Travis’s mouth. 
The cause of her sorrow showed that he was aware of the 
change of expression by that quivering contraction of flesh 
that anticipates a blow. Travis saw and relented. 

“ Tavy, I have already forgiven ye, on my own account, 
but this is news to me as being your handiwork, and I’ll 
own it touches me closely. What have ye to say to it ? ” 

“ Mr. Travis, I will tell you everything. ’Tis all of the 
same piece. You think I gave you away to the Major on the 
road, but, indeed, and upon my very soul I did not. He 
overheard our talk in the bowling-alley, every word of it, 
from behind that yew hedge. He has bragged to me of it.” 

“ Soho, if not then, you own yourself in his confidence 
since.” 

“ In his power, sir, for his eavesdropping had shown him 
the danger I stood in, as well as your plans. With the belt 
which he manoeuvred to take — and did take from your body — 
he thought to make his own terms with my lord, but it 
seemed that you had divided the gems, the best were miss- 
ing, and my lord impounded those the Major brought, and 
threatened him with the law unless he produced the rest. I 
thought he would have killed me that night. It seemed 
as if nothing but my last breath would convince him that I 
was not hiding the things, which were no more his than 
mine,” added the speaker with bitterness. “ Oh, ye don’t 
know the man, sir : he would betray any one, desert any 
one, rob any one to further his ends.” 

“ He betrayed, he robbed, and he deserted me, sir, thanks to 
yourself,” said Sue, “ for I suppose ye were never the curate 
of the parish ? ” 

“ Ah, madam, I had forgot for a moment that ye knew him ; 
you at least will understand. The Fathers held that the 
devil sometimes was permitted to walk in human form, the 
medievalists agreed. I have thought at times that this was 
a modern instance. He will be punished eventually, no doubt, 
but meanwhile it is his hour. You, Travis — sir, I mean — 
are burning to call him out, I see it in your eye, but, ye won’t 
for ye can’t. There is a hedge about him, for a time. Then 
don’t be too hard upon me, a weaker man, a man with nerves, 
that I obeyed him like his dog. Sir — madam — he held Lord 
Duddingstone’s warrant over me like a whip ; I ran, I crawled, 
I fetched and carried for him for near a month, and for what ? 


THE END OF THE QUEST 307 

Half a bed in a waterside inn and my bread — no more ; and 
at the end of it, having throttled and thrashed me near to 
fainting, he drags me to a recruiting sergeant, enlists me, 
pockets my bounty and makes off. Oh, if there be a God ! ” 

“ By your account, Tavy, ye had the poorest of times with 
the fellow and are well quit of him ! ” 

“ Oh, that I were,” whimpered the other, “ but I am not. 
He knows where I am quartered here. My room-sergeant is 
in his interest, as I believe. If in London I was used like a 
hound, here I am served like a blackamoor ; nay, a black in 
service has the better life of it. And, now ” with a side- 

long glance at the lady, “ ’twill be hell itself,” he groaned. 

“I do not understand. Ye will tell us that he forced ye 

to marry him to this lady, Tavy ” 

“ He did, he did, sir; I could not choose.’ 1 
“ Well, I believe ye. He being what he is, and ye what ye 
are, ye could not choose. And faith, the fellow was too much 
for the two of us. I, at least, took no change out of him.” 

“ That’s true, sir,” assented the other, saluting auto- 
matically, and shuddering at the remembrance of the last 
time that they had met. 

“ But for the present,” resumed Travis, “ take what com- 
fort ye can, man, for neither my sister nor I will molest ye. 
We want no more from ye than your sworn deposition of her 
marriage, something more formal than the one we hold, and 
with witnesses to your signature of better standing than a 
; lodging-house keeper and a sea-captain. Ye understand ? ” 
The unfortunate man understood only too well. “ Oh, 
Lord,” he wept, breaking forth afresh, “ that caps the 
business, and will be my very death. The Major ” (for 
the wretch there was but one in the garrison) “ will get wind 
of it, and, begging your pardon, and this lady’s, he is already 
paying his addresses elsewhere. I had it from his batman, 

I 1 sir. So ye will see that if my testimony is likely to stand in 
his way I shall be done for in no time. I dare not think to 
what lengths my sergeant and my casemate will go to earn 
his dollars ; and if I should chance to live through their horse- 
play, he will give me up upon the English warrant.” 

“ In a word,” replied Travis, taking in the situation, “ he has 
1 ye all round ; the man carries too heavy metal for you and 
me, Tavy.” 

“ Listen to me, poor man,” said Sue, touched to the heart 
by the deplorable predicament to which his vices and his 
weakness had conducted the clergyman. “ If I spoke harshly 
just now, forgive me, as I forgive you ; I cannot bear that 
any one should be afraid of me — of me! You have nothing 
to fear from us. My husband has renounced me. I wish to 


CRISIS 


308 

have no more to do withjhim. God, who has punished you 
for the evil you did to me, may one day, perhaps, punish him. 
I think He will. But I’ll move no finger to harm him, nor 
ask anything of the man but to be left to myself.” 

The sun, bright to the last, had dipped behind the hills 
above Cabrita Point. It was already dusk in the Alameda 
below, where one of the regimental bands was playing, but 
there was still light upon the bushy terraces from which 
Travis and Sue were descending. In a covered way, at 
which the engineers had been working, a linkman was busy 
with flint and steel, making a light for the lanthorn he 
carried, whilst just on before, his master, some officer of 
importance who had been inspecting the progress of the 
work, paced slowly in thought, his hands behind him. The 
lieutenant glanced at him in passing and instantly saluted 
with the fervour of youth for its hero. “ His Excellency!” 
he whispered, and Susan’s eyes widened. 


CHAPTER V 


WHAT WAS HAPPENING MEANWHILE 

And what was the paper which Travis was carrying ? Re- 
serves may be permissible when a lady is in the case and 
the question reserved is a point of honour ; but we are privileged : 
there shall be nothing kept back from us. 

To treat this point as it should be treated, one must set 
back the clock an hour and realise what had been happening 
to others elsewhere whilst the ladies were tying one another’s 
bonnet-strings, and Sue was awaiting her brother’s voice at 
the door. 

In the public gardens is the murmur of a moving crowd 
and the pit-a-pat of sauntering feet. It is already delicately 
and coolly dusk beneath the umbrella pines and between the 
ranks of the taller aloes. The golden glow left behind by 
the just-sunk sun deepens behind the Laja del Sicar ; the 
African mountains are marvels of palest turquoise washed 
with milky primrose, which changes whilst one gazes to some- 
thing deeper and richer. A reviving freshness blows in off the 
water where the shipping are hanging their riding-lights. 
Not yet is it needful to warp everything to the shore or confine 
it within floating booms. The guard-ships are manning their 
launches for night-patrol duty. It is war-time, but the leaden 
foot of Spain has hardly been lifted, and save for the stoppage 
of the overland mails, and occasional shots exchanged between 
the British sentries at Forbes’s Barrier and the Spaniards 
on the isthmus, one would not have known that hostilities 
had commenced. 

Here, in the Alameda, at least is peace ; a band is playing : 
the long straight walks, which next month will be ploughed 
to receive plunging shells, are still firm and crowded with 
moving throngs, officers and their ladies and subalterns, who, 
having no lady companions, go strolling side by side. 

“ Have ye seen the grand new major of the Hardenbergs ? ’* 
asks Ensign Headington of the 39th Foot, of his friend Elwes, 
a subaltern in the Engineers. 


3 io 


CRISIS 


“ Can’t say I’ve enjoyed that privilege yet. Is there much 
to see ? ” 

“ Six feet two inches, and more of him. But you must be 
careful how ye refer to him in public. He is not the man 
to take a joke. I have had word from my half-brother in the 
41st. The fellow is a fair devil, a wonder with the small- 
sword, an astonishing shot with the pistol. He was just the 
master-bull of the mess ; no quiet person could call his soul 
his own.” 

“You terrify me, Headie. Let me advise ye as a peaceable 
lad to eschew the fellow’s company, and I’ll do the like. 
And, now I come to think on’t, this fire-eater has come out at an 
awkward moment. The Hardenbergs are still dev’lish sore 
about the affair between Von Toppler and Steadman, ye know. 
Have ye heard anything fresh ? ” 

“ Nothing I should care to have come round to me again. 

I can tell ye something in confidence, though, if ” Elwes 

edged nearer to his friend upon the seat they were occupying, 
and gave his word to be secret. 

“ It is like this ; things get about through the mess-waiters 
. . . things which ought hardly to be repeated. . . . The 
Hardenbergs are sore ... it hasn’t worn off. ... Ye heard 
about the oath upon the regimental colour ? No ? Well, 
the officers’ mess swore to have blood for blood, if it took 
them ten years. But it went beyond play-acting.” 

“ They mean business, ye think ? ” 

“ If what I did hear was true, they do mean business, my 

boy. There was a drawing of lots ” 

“Humph; then some one will have been told off to do 
the job, and the rest will see that he does it. On the whole, 
Headie, ’tis well to be serving in an English line regiment.” 

“ M’yes ; we’re all sorts and conditions of men in this 
garrison, and some of us are rather vindictive. I wouldn’t 
have wondered at anything the Corsican contingent did in 
that line, nor De la Motte’s Germans, who have a lot of those 
Huguenots in their officers’ mess ; but to find a parcel of sausage- 
eating Hanoverians so keen upon the point of honour 

By the way, isn’t that one of the 12th — that dark, pretty 
fellow ? No, not that way : the one walking slowly — there ; 
he has just turned in among the trees ! ” 

“ Certainly, that is Travis, a new-comer ; joined by the 
April convoy. Not a bad sort, though his regiment sees 
nothing of him. He is one of the bookish men who are always 
wanting to distinguish themselves, and has got himself at- 
tached to the gunners and goes messing about with time-fuses 

and things : lucky if he don’t blow ” 

“ Pst ! Did ye see that ? One of the Hardenbergs nipped 


WHAT WAS HAPPENING MEANWHILE 31 1 

in after him whilst ye were speaking. And that’s funny, 
too : they aren’t supposed to come within speech of one 
another. I know the fellow by sight (which is about all I mean 
to know of him) ; ’tis Scrivener, a little beast. I hear he was 
in trouble with his last mess, and I fancy these Hanoverians 
find him a bit of a blister. What does movey sujey mean ? — a 
man of theirs, a Frenchman ” 

“ My word, what a frock ! ” interrupted the other in an 
awed whisper. “ Who the deuce have ye got here ? I suppose 
that’ll be the new mode, handier than the hoop, but monstrous 
inconvenient for a narrow passage. A fine woman, too. Who 
is she ? ” 

“ Can’t say. Came out in the Paladin , I think. Hillo ! 
eyes right, my boy, that’s the man we were speaking of, the 
big new major ! Don’t poke, for goodness’ sake I ” 

. “ Phew, if he looks like that when out for an evening’s 
diversion, what sort of a mug would he wear if he were crossed ? 
Not the sort for a man to walk in front of whistling Lillibulero, 
eh ? ” 

“ Not exactly. And who’s that ? ” 

“ One of Lord M’Leod’s savages, I should think, by the 
way of him. Not but what ’tis a fine regiment, a thousand 
strong, and can run and climb like so many wild cats. I 
suppose we must learn to be civil to the creatures, but ’twill 
seem strange at first. They tell me there are twenty case- 
mates in the King’s Bastion in which we should understand 
nought but the words of command. That man speaks some- 
thing he would pull your nose if you said was not English. 
They call him Cheeseham. I wonder how he spells it, and 
whom he is looking for.” 

Chisholm was seeking Travis, with a wish at his heart, which 
he fingered and played with, but dared not exhibit. His friend 
would be crossing the Alameda about this time, upon his way 
to Prince Frederic Street ; he would be spending the evening 
with Sue. What if he, Chisholm, waylaid him, walked a few 
steps beside him. Would he be invited to accompany him to 
the house — to share the stroll ? Very shy was the young 
Scot, as a lover is likely to be whose prospects are overclouded 
and indefinite, and whose pockets are empty. As to the first 
and most important obstacle, Chisholm had formed his own 
theory of the facts disclosed at the Convent, but he quite 
understood that the lady clung to another. Whilst she held 
this it was moth-and-candle folly to approach her ; yet moths 
do go to candles, and Chisholm longed for the light and warmth 
of her dangerous presence. He met the man he sought 
walking swiftly with a grave face, and, wheeling with a friendly 
word, fell into step beside him. His friend had something 


312 


CRISIS 


upon his mind, apparently, for he had little to say, yet, as 
they left the crowd at the northern entrance of the gardens 
and found a quiet street, Travis turned to the Scot with a 
question pitched in the confidential undertone that invites 
reciprocal treatment. 

“ What’s all this talk about the Hardenbergs, this swearing 
on the colour ? It is all new to me ; d’ye know anything of 
it ? ” 

“ Ou, ay, something, but no’ muckle, a waif word, as ye 
micht say — naething that sud be spokken aboot.” 

“ Nonsense, Chizzie ; ye’ll speak about it to me. Come, 
now, has there been a drawing of lots ? ” 

“ Ay, so ’tis said. A black bean wass the lot. I wad 
like fine to ken whilk o’ them drew yon bean.” 

“ I could tell ye that,” replied Travis after a pause, speaking 
very low. 

“ Man, are ye sarious ? D’ye ken richt ? Whaur’s your 
eevidence ? ” 

“ I had it irom the fellow’s own lips, Chisholm, not ten 
minutes since.” 

The Scotsman whistled softly and regarded his friend 
askance with a face of portentous length and gravity. 

“ And what is more, I got from him the name of the man of 
ours who was drawn at the second ballot, the man whom he is 
to call out ! ” 

“ That wull be yoursel’, aw’m thenkin’ ” muttered the other 
cannily. “ But hoo cam’ the chiel t’ye by his lane ? and 
hoo cam’ he at a’ ? Whaur wass his frien’ ? ’Twass michty 
ill-guided.” 

“ Quite irregular. And the cartel is in writing.” 

“That is no fery singular. But, regular or no’, I’ll act for 
ye, Travis ; yes, if I am brok’ for it.” 

“You would certainly be broke, and (thanking ye all the 
same) — ye shall not act. For without the Governor’s leave 
(which he won’t give) I don’t fight. That is one reason. 
(I have others.) I told the man so.” 

“ Ye tell’t him ? Man, Travis, ye’re a hero ! ” 

“ Then heroes are cheaper than I had thought.” 

“ Aiblins they are, but here’s ane o’ them. I tell ye 
fairly I could not ha’ dune it masel’ ! Dod, it beats me ! But 
hoo cam’ it that efter that, and efter delee verin’ his cartel the 
loon stood crackin’ wi’ ye, giving ye parteeculars o’ his mess’s 
ungodly cantrips ? But there ! it beats me ! Ye had the 
nerve to return the cartel ! ” 

“ On the contrary, I have it here,” tapping his breast. 

“Ye have ? — then I am by wi’ sperin’. Tell’s yer tale as 
it comes. Aw’m all attention.” 


WHAT WAS HAPPENING MEANWHILE 313 

“You shall have it, barring the man’s name.’’ 

“ Whilk I can mak’ a guid guess at, for as I cam’ through 
Irish Town, I met a young shentleman of the Hardenbergs 
gaeing hastily in till their barracks with a fery hanging face 
upon him, and aw’m thenking there wull not be twa sic-like 
even in that corps. But gang on wi’ ye.” 

“ The man has been dogging me for weeks, as I can see now, 
but I would have no speech with him. You see I knew him 
j at home. But ten minutes since, behind the bushes there, 

! he forced himself upon me, and would be slipping this letter 
into my hand, and was for mumbling something and making 
off. I knew nothing of his business, or of these beans and 
oaths then, but knowing what I do of him, I took him by the 
collar and told him that though he might be serving with 
Hanoverians, he could surely speak English. I suppose I 
spoke stiffly, and the poor wretch, what between fear of his 
mess and fear of me, broke down.” 

“ Saughed ? — ye’ll not say ” 

“ Shook and sweated : ’tis a way with him. He whimpered, 
snivelled, entreated, confessed — in a word, gave me the 
i whole story of how he had drawn the bean, and was forced 
; upon the business. I found a pencil and made him write it 
upon the back of his cartel ; yes, the whole precious story.” 

“ Man, ye winna tell me that he wrote ” 

“ Just that, and put his name to it. Read. I turn down 
the signature, though I have given him no undertaking. 
And, see, he owns to having declined to meet me last year, 
and since then to my intercession having saved him from being 
forced to eat my cartel.” 

The Highlander pulled out a long lip. “ What sor’rt of 
messan-doggies hae we in this garrison ? Hoo the deil got 
ye the vratch to set his hand to siccan infamy ? ” 

“ A man with a bad conscience will do queer things, Mr. 
Chisholm, when the devil has him by one ear and his master 
by its fellow.” 

“ By the lug ? But ye spik in a figure ? ” 

“ No, actually. I stuck to him whilst he wrote, and was 
1 of a mind to have tweaked him by the nose when he had 
' done, for I thought it due to the honour of my regiment. 
But, after all, ’twas my lord his noble father who gave 
me my commission. And I’ve forgiven the poor creature 
j before.” 

“In the Alameda here — sic a public resort ? ” 

“ Such as it is he chose it. But ’tis a wonder we were not 
interrupted, he upon his knees and all ! But it had to be 
risked. It came upon me that if I let him get off with his 
; paper he would put it about that I declined to meet him. 


CRISIS 


314 

and, our messes being on the terms ye know, ’twould have i 
been awkward for me and mine ” 

“ But,” broke in Chisholm, with appreciation of good 
strategy, “ whilst ye hold the paper and his remairks on it, 
he will tell his mess he hasna been able to get at ye. Man, 1 
ye will hear nae mair on’t.” 

“ From this fellow — no. But if I do, I shall place the 
affair in my major’s hands ; and so I told him. But how j 
goes yourself, and how are ye getting on with the curlie- 
whirlies ? ” 

“ Man, ’tis a fearsome beesniss, their hand-o’-write. As to 
their spitch, a can juist feel ma fit. I am expeerimenting wi’ 
ilka Moor that I can get a word wi’. Doon at the water-port 
there is an auld blin’ fruit-seller, and there’s a couple o’ 
preesoners in Casemate Nineteen that I’ve forgaithered wi’.” 
The youth had coloured and winced a little at the first question, I 
as a youngster will when surprised in the prosecution of some 
honourable enterprise a little out of the common ; he had 
warmed as he detailed his method and success. 

“ But do the beggars understand ye ? ’Tis a miracle ! 
Stick to it, and Eliott will appoint ye his agent in Tetuan some 
day : you Highlanders are reputed judges of cattle. (No 
offence !) But, indeed and truth, my boy, ’tis the King’s 
English that ye are weak in (don’t glare so fiercely ; ye can’t 
challenge me, ye know) ; and if ever ye are to command 
your regiment ” 

“ And I think to do that same ane day, Travis. Guid nicht 
till ye,” said the Scot with dignity, perceiving by his com- 
panion’s slackening stride that he was not to be invited to 
accompany him farther. 

They had made their adieux, but paused, the same thought 
uppermost in each, and each loath to put it into speech. 
Said the Scot : 

“ Can naething be dune wi’ this Boyle-Tighe brute ? 
’Tis nae beesiness o’ mine, ye’ll be saying ” 

“ Indeed, but I will say nothing so absurd. Circumstances 
have brought you very much into it, Chisholm ; it would be 
ridiculous to exclude you from my — our counsels, and I’m 
not going to do so. Oh, I know what you are going to tell me : 
the fellow is already at his tricks elsewhere. But what can 
one do ? — You or I ? Nothing ! ” 

“ Aw’m nane so sure o’ thot. I am inclined to hae a smack 
at him masel’, hit or miss.” 

“And break yourself, man, without doing the least good 
in the world. Hear my parable. In Oxford on market days 
the cattle have the run of the High. I once met a crowd 
pelting around a corner into the Turl, bawling, ‘ Get out of 


WHAT WAS HAPPENING MEANWHILE 


3i5 

the way, Robinson’s mad bull is loose ! ’ Ye may think that 
I jumped for an entry ; but there was a little bald-headed, 
pot-bellied draper fellow who stood his ground, saying, ‘ I 
i won’t get out of the way ; what right has Robinson to bring 
I his mad bulls here ? ’ ” 

“ Eh, but he did ? And what next ? ” 

“ The brute came round the corner and took that fat little 
draper fellow one toss — only one, mind.” 

“ He wass a deid man, aw’m thenking.” 

“ Stone dead, my friend. Ye understand me ? ” 

“ I mind ye, Travis, and I thank ye ; but I loo’ thot little 
draper fallow like a brither, and I’d like fine to tak’ ma toss 
if ’tis God’s wull, ay, gin it sud land me in a tow’s-eend,” 
he muttered. 

“Ye are a fool, Mr. Chisholm ! ” 

“ Aiblins I am, Mr. Travis; the Chisholms are something 
that way. But I’ll tell ye anither thing. I haf kenned that 
Irish shentleman for this four, five months mair or less, and 
I tell ye fairly I distasted the man before I kent what he was, 
and the better I kent him the waur I likit him.” 

“ A quarrel at Falmouth ? ” 

“ Never ane wry word ; but we’re juist made that way, 
this shentleman and masel’. And the noo that I ken him weel 
and have seen intill the coorse, black heart of him, I hate him 
with ma hail sawl and mind. And, Travis, ye sail see that I 
wull be the deith o’ him yet. ... I dinna ken juist hoo, but 
ye’ll see.” The lad nodded, glowering as though he saw 
again before him the great red jowl of his enemy bound within 
a mort-cloth. 

Travis, himself not the most patient of men, gravely looked 
his wonder at a novel phenomenon, a bed of live lava beneath 
the northern snow. 

“ Ye shall not move without me,” he said at length, extend- 
ing his hand. 

“ I will not,” said the Scot, taking it, and went, neither 
having breathed a certain name which was upon both their 
tongues. 


CHAPTER VI 


MORE MEANWHILE HAPPENINGS 


Meanwhile, in the Alameda the throng is thickening. Two 
ladies are approaching, unescorted ; the buxom widow of 
the Paladin, who by this time is beginning to feel her feet, 
and has made acquaintance, is taking the air with her hostess. 
She moves sedately, the cynosure of all eyes ; the men ogling 
her for her demure good looks, their ladies to get hints for 
their maids from fineries nearer to the fashion than any other 
lady’s upon the Rock. 

Mrs. Hollinghurst is pleasantly aware of the interest which 
she excites ; for her own part, as this is one of the first evening 
promenades in which she has participated, there is much for 
her to see and to wonder at. 

“ Do tell me, my dear,” she whispers. “ What are those 
women doing abroad so little dressed ? — no bonnets ! ” 

“La, Mrs. Hollinghurst, have ye never heard tell of the 
mantilla ? ’Tis the Spanish female mode, my dear, and most 
unbecoming, we all agree. Wonderful figures, I admit, but 
all their countrywomen have. The creatures are what we 
call Rock Scorpions, families which were here when Rooke 
took the place and were allowed to take the oath and remain. 
(Please not to look at them — combs, fans and all !) We 
rarely admit them to our society ; they are under suspicion as 
to their loyalty, my dear, and I hear the Governor was of half 
a mind to send them packing last week when he put the Jews 
and Genoese out of the place. But here come the men. 
Mercenary creatures ! The terms of your poor husband’s 
will have not taken long in getting round. (It was in the 
News Letter that the Packet brought out.) I suppose it was 
stated correctly in the main ? You inherit the residue on 
conditions only of visiting his grave here within twelve months 
of the poor gentleman’s death ? ” 

“ Quite true, Mrs. Lamb : he was a dear, kind soul and 


316 


more meanwhile happenings 


317 




it, I 
s, 



f 


very good to me. But what interest my affairs can have for 
gentlemen and perfect strangers ” 

“ La, madam, you are too innocent for this world. Did 
they not pester ye with declarations on board ship ? No ! 
Then, trust me, ’twas because they did not know what they 
were carrying. That tall, fine Irish major, now, who has 
called twice already (and found ye not at home, by the 
greatest chances in the world), I’ll be sworn that man has been 
biting his nails to think of the opportunities he threw away 
on the voyage.” 

“ Threw away ? Mrs. Lamb ! I declare he was most 
civil and amusing.” 

“ Talked love, I’ll be bound, but did not propose. No, 
my dear, he was playing with ye, and is sorry for it by this. 
Ye will hear more from him yet. And Susan’s friend, the 
gentleman who saved your hand ” 

“ He is a gentleman ! ” interposed Mrs. Hollinghurst with 
conviction, and immediately blushed, for the man of whom 
she was thinking was passing at the moment. Mrs. Lamb 
saw him too and laughed. 

“Good evening to ye, Major Justin; and will ye pass us 
without speaking ? ” 

The man, who was walking slowly and alone, his hands 
clasped behind him, and his eyes fixed upon the fading beauties 
of the western sky, started, smiled, and bowed. 

“ A thousand pardons, my dear ladies ! — I — I confess I 
was thinking.” 

“ But it seems ye can act too, Major, upon occasion. What 
is this they are telling of ye ? Was it last night, or the night 
before, that ye disarmed that drunken madman ? ” 

“O, the mess-waiter ? Have ye heard of that stupid busi- 
ness ? Really, I wonder at the little folks seem to have to 
talk about.” 

“To hear him, Mrs. Hollinghurst ! He accuses us of gossip,” 
laughed the chaperon. “ We had best be moving on. But 
do tell us, Major, how ye managed it : they say he is one of 
the strongest men in the garrison, and that ye mastered him 
as if he had been a child, and without drawing your side-arm. 
Is it true ? I do assure ye it is all the talk among the men ; 
and we poor things, being by virtue of our sex naturally 
curious, would be obliged to ye for some first-hand information. 
Is it the fact that the creature cleared the mess-house, and 
drove Major Tulkinghorne out of the window and Colonel 
Trigge beneath the table ? ” 

“ Hush ! hush ! I beg ! ” implored the officer. “ I can only 
tell ye what I saw.” 

“ And what ye did.” 


318 


CRISIS 


“ Oh, that was simple ; you must know that years ago, when 
serving in the East, some of us youngsters, who had very 
little to do, amused ourselves by taking lessons in wrestling 1 
from native jugglers and so forth. ’Twas a Yellow-boy’s 
trick, no more ; sleight-of-hand, you may say, needing neither 
courage nor strength, I do assure ye. 

“ And now, tell me how ye like Gibraltar ? ” He 
relinquished Mrs. Lamb to another acquaintance, and turning 
to her companion, dropped his voice to the confidential pitch, to 
exclude, if he might, the little circle of men who were gathering 
around the ladies as wasps to honey. It had not crossed his | 
mind that his own acquaintance could be an object to any one ; 
but a certain exploit, the one to which the lady had alluded, 
which reflected credit upon himself, and upon no one else 
concerned, had aroused curiosity in the bosoms of both sexes 
in a small society, hedged in, shut out from the world, hard up 
for subjects of discussion, and empty-pated exceedingly. 

It was plain that the Major would not be left long in sole 
enjoyment of the lady’s company. This, men were saying, 
would be the new arrival, old Hollinghurst’s young widow ; 
well provided for, too : the Colonel’s means surprised his 
executors. Did those fellows who came out with her in the 
Paladin know, think ye ? They will have learnt by this ; 
trust that swaggering Irishman. 

The chaperon, Mrs. Lamb, was something of a character. 
Men were greeting her as men greet those from whom they 
hope to receive ; spelling for introductions, the hour and the 
place seemed propitious. A circle was forming, when into 
the midst pushed a commanding presence, the height and 
bulk of a tall, fine man, with a purpose formed and the resolu- 
tion to carry it through : Major Boyle had arrived. 

He dealt first with the ring of ladies’ men, treating each 
in succession to the level stare that gave notice of dismissal 
as plainly as words. He greeted none, reserving that 
condescension for the fairer sex. 

“ Ha, Mrs. Hollinghurst, your servant, madam ; I am 
overjoyed to see ye. I trust ye have entirely recovered from 
the fatigue of the voyage ; but as I live, madam, the question 
is needluss, your looks reply for ye, begad ! Will ye do me 
the favour to present me to your friend ? — Mrs. Lamb, your 
humble servant ; Mrs. Hollinghurst and mesilf are old friends, 
fellow travellers ; we came out together on the Paladin, a 
dry ship, madam, and roomy, but on the say, however com- 
modious the quarters, one must, as ye are aware, either quarrel 
or be friends. The leedy has no doubt informed ye, madam, 
that we did not quarrel. Ha ! ha ! In a word, we were very 
agreeably thrown upon one another’s society (for, I give ye 


MORE MEANWHILE HAPPENINGS 


319 


me word, there was hardly another sowl on board with whom 
a person of condition could exchange a remark), and the sister 
service scarcely counts, d’ye see ? ” 

“ La, Major,” laughed the widow, “it is all very well to be 
saying so ashore, but we didn’t hear ye talk in this manner 
on the quarter-deck. Did we. Major Justin ? ” 

“ Speaking for myself, purely for myself, Mrs. Holling- 
hurst,” said Justin with affable gravity, “ I found the Paladin’s 
company agreeable fellows enough.” 

“ Are ye speakin’ of the marine gunners’ mess or the 
fo’ksle ? ” asked the other superciliously over his shoulder. 
It was his first recognition of the other’s presence. There was 
a moment’s silence. The circle had perceptibly widened at 
the Irishman’s coming ; it broke now ; men remembered 
engagements ; it never does a fellow good to have been 
present at an altercation. The more part went ; a couple of 
youthful gabies stayed, fingering smooth chins, curious as 
to what would befall, possibly too awkward to escape, one of 
the twain tingling with resentment at the insult offered to 
his service. 

“ We were saying ” resumed Justin, addressing the 

ladies. 

“Ye have not answered my question, sir,” interposed 
Boyle with mordant distinctness. 

“ Then I must apologise for the incivility ; no offence 
intended, Boyle. What was it ye wanted to know ? With 
whom I messed aboard ? Why, with yourself to be sure, 
man ! ” 

“ Darkness is falling : we had best be getting along home, 
my dear,” hurriedly urged Mrs. Lamb. 

“ May I escort you ? ” asked Justin. Both ladies opened 
their lips in assent, but Boyle swung his massive person 
between them, offering his arm. 

“ Dark ? Preposterous, madam ; quite the plisantest half- 
hour of the twenty-four. Mrs. Hollinghurst, I am sure, will 
be delightud with the Alameda by moon-rise ; the band will 
be playing for another twenty minutes. Permit me to offer 
ye my ar’rm, my dear leedy, to the south end and back.” 

Whilst speaking, he had turned the broad of his back to 
Justin, and now, with a sudden half-pace to the rear, so man- 
aged his heel as to bring it down with emphasis and intent 
within the fraction of an inch of his rival’s toe. Onlookers 
started, the ladies saw and were visibly disconcerted. 

“My foot; I think, Boyle,” laughed the Englishman, good- 
naturedly ignoring the insult. “ But, if it’s as dark as all that, 
I should say we had all of us better be moving. What say 
you, ladies ? ’* 


CRISIS 


320 



“Unquestionably. Oh, certainly. Do, please. Oh, thankye, 
Major Justin,” cried the women hurriedly and in a breath, 
accepting the arms he offered whilst adroitly changing front. 
Off sailed the three (“a corvette with a couple of prizes 
grappled abeam,” muttered the angry subaltern of marines). 
The towering figure of the Irishman was left plante in the 
middle of the walk. 

“ How long will that fellow remain in irons ? ” whispered 
the J oily. Boyle heard, but had business on hand that forbade 
him to take up a quarrel with a beggarly lieutenant. He 
strode in pursuit, keeping a calculated distance, selecting his 
moment to intervene, and, as it happened, delayed too long. 
Turning from the landward gate of the gardens into a lane, 
the three were mounting a narrow flight of steps leading to a 
higher terrace. Putting on pace, he was upon them swiftly. 
They had left the last of the afterglow behind them upon the 
tops of the garden trees ; the alley, steep and ill-paved, was 
dusk underfoot; the pursuer failed to distinguish where the 
increasing gradient changed to steps, caught his toe, and 
saving himself from a sprawl with difficulty, was surprised 
into an oath. The hot word and the clink of his scabbard 
upon the stone caught the ear of a personage descending the 
flight above, hidden by the turn. For the moment the small 
mischance whetted the edge of Boyle’s ill-humour ; thrusting 
his bulky person almost roughly between Mrs. Lamb and the 
wall, he had passed the party before they were aware of his 
intention, and, turning, halted, blocking the alley. 

“ A moment, if you please, leedies — and you, sir ! Mrs. 
Hollinghurst, madam, permit me, I beg, the honour of a 
wor’rd with ye in privut.” 

The lady addressed tightened her hold upon the arm of 
her cavalier. “With me, sir ? — here ? — impossible ! ” She 
caught her breath. “ I do not understand,” she recommenced 
faintly, beginning to tremble ; the bulk, the height, the virile 
force of the man upon the steps above her affecting her imagi- 
nation. Some women are to be won so ; marriage by capture 
is the oldest form of the rite, nor was the captive always un- 
willing, unless human nature has changed enormously. 

‘ ‘ Shall I ? Must I ? Oh, what am I to do ? ” she communed 
with herself, and found no answer. The small fingers within 
the crook of Justin’s arm fluttered ; the arm closed upon them 
in kindly reassurance. It sped, the electric thrill between 
man and woman. “ Oh, moment one and infinite,” the future 
blessedness or regrets of two lives hung upon an instant de- 
cision, and for a third of the party, bloody and shame- 
ful death. So spin the Fates. Thus heartened, the lady 
spoke. 


MORE MEANWHILE HAPPENINGS 


321 


“ I — I fail to understand ye, sir. I must decline.” 

“ It shall be me juty and me privilege to make ye onder- 
stand me, madam. I offer ye me escor’rt, madam.” He 
crooked an arm and stood a moment, expectant of her 
acceptance, bending toward her and descending a step. She, 
retreating, clung the closer to Justin. Her wooer rushed upon 
his fate. 

“ Since ye refuse me the privacy which the meanust 
of mankind has the right to demand onder the circum- 
stances, I will say in public what was intendud, and indeed 
is fitter for your own ear. I make to ye my declaration, 
madam ; I am, I profess mesilf, and ever will be your devotud 
servant.” 

“ One would have supposed you to be our master, sir,” 
snapped Mrs. Lamb, with recovered spirit. “ Will you have 
the goodness to allow us to pass ? ” 

“ You have my full permission to go to hell, madam ! ” 
blurted the unfortunate lover, beside himself with passion. 
“ It was not to you that I was declaring mesilf.” 

“ O, fie, sir ! ” cried the lady, with a small shriek, and 
picking up her petticoat, she was for passing. Justin also 
made a step, Mrs. Hollinghurst moving with him, her hand 
still tightly within his arm. 

Boyle, who had given ground for a moment, stepped to the 
front again. It was now or never ; this damned, cool English- 
man would not commit himself, it seemed, for anything short 
of the lie direct (which is hard to give to a silent man) or for 
a blow, for which there had been no shadow of excuse even 
if women had not been present. Yet stop her he must. 
This method of attack has the disadvantage of being incapable 
of being repeated ; a woman may condone, may accept a 
single outbreak of unbridled passion for which her own beauty 
has given excuse ; but not a second — the critics of her own 
sex forbid that. Boyle, experienced in such matters, knew all 
this, and knew the risk of delay, knew too that he was staking 
everything upon a weak hand. He spoke. 

“No, madam,” laying a finger upon her arm. “ I await 
my answer. The wor’rd lies with ye. Choose, me dear 
leedy, once and for all, bechune a soldier, a rude soldier, 
madam, but a man, madam, as th’ Almighty made um 
— bechune me and this — this person here. Again, and for 
the last time, I offer ye the ar’rm and the pro-tiction of a 
gintleman ! ” 

This time it was both the ladies who cried out : Mrs. 
Hollinghurst clapping her little hands to her ears. Justin 
interposed. 

” Really, Boyle, ye have — inadvertently, no doubt — ex- 

21 


322 


CRISIS 


pressed yourself unfortunately. The lady is in no posture to 
listen to more. I beg ye to reflect that this is not the place, 
nor the hour M 

“ Will ye hold your tongue, sir ? ” burst from the Irishman, 
by this time past calculating consequences. 

“ Willingly. I should be sorry, for your sake, to have to 
report this ” 

‘ ‘ Report what ? Stand where you are. Show a light 
here!” A personage was descending from above; he was 
past the turn ; his linkman, leaning from the guard-rail of the 
upper flight, hung a lanthorn over, disclosing Boyle’s hand in 
the act of releasing his sword-hilt, revealing his congested 
and furious face, his posture of menace, and the scared, white 
countenances of the women. 

The speaker was the Governor himself, General Sir George 
Eliott, in a fine, cold displeasure. 

“ Your name and regiment, sir ? What ! Major Boyle ? 
No, don’t excuse yourself to me, sir ; I can trust my own 
ears, I think, and have heard enough, and more than enough. 
What ? You had not challenged this gentleman ? But with 
your next breath you would have done, if, indeed, you had not 
cut him down first. Yes, sir, ‘ cut him down ’ is what I said. 
Your hand was upon your sword, sir. What may I infer from 
that ? ” 

The offender had nothing to say, and wisely remained silent. 
This man might ruin him with his next word if crossed. ’Twas 
war-time, and such fellows as he are useful in war-time : his 
fortune hung upon that consideration, and no other. 

The ladies burst into tears. Mrs. Lamb would probably 
have fainted had there been the smallest of conveniences 
for fainting. Of the women, the great man took no account 
whatever : the charge he held from the King engrossed his 
thought day and night ; this, and the men whom he com- 
manded, these two among others. He looked hard upon each 
in turn, read their faces, and acted upon what he saw. He 
turned to Justin. “You, sir, have carried yourself like an 
officer and a gentleman: I bid ye good-night.” He faced 
Boyle, “ You, sir, will remain under arrest in your quarters 
for fourteen days. Report yourself to me at the end of your 
term. Had ye drawn but an inch, but one single inch, sir, 
I’d have broke ye. Precede me, if ye please.” 

Major Cornelius Boyle reached his quarters in the blackest 
of ill-humours. The man hardly knew himself in his novel 
environment. In the 41st his tyrannical whims had pressed 
like a nightmare upon the existences of brother officers, mere 
ordinary men, who had judged it wiser to submit to each 


MORE MEANWHILE HAPPENINGS 323 

successive demand than to throw away life in front of a pistol 
j which had never missed its victim yet. 

Here, at Gibraltar, the man had found himself handicapped 
by his record on landing, snubbed, set down and put upon his 
, good behaviour from the first day. More galling yet, he had 
met his overmatch in coolness and address in a man of his 
j own rank. His position was shaken, was comparable to that 
of a big fellow, lately the cock of a school from which he has 
been expelled for bullying, who finds himself under strict 
s surveillance at the establishment to which he has been un- 
| willingly admitted, and is unable to resume his malpractices 
! save at serious risk. 

The night was warm ; he tossed his hat aside, loosened his 
i stock, and mused glumly for a while. His orderly entered, 
unaware of his master’s presence, astonished to find him 
sitting in the dark, alone and sober. 

“ Is Ensign Scrivener in barracks ? Send him to me.” 

The lad entered, half scared, half fluttered at the summons. 

We have met him before. He was by this time by way of 
becoming a soldier in spite of himself. After his final escapade 
at Colchester, his long-suffering father had hardened his heart 
| and was not to be appeased by anything short of exile and 
active service. An enforced exchange into a Hanoverian 
regiment quartered at Gibraltar had followed ; and here 
was the scapegrace heir to fifteen thousand a year messing 
with officers who resented his intrusion into their corps, and 
showed it by speaking German in his presence. As the drill, 
j regimental orders, and words of command were foreign, the 
miserable youth must perforce begin at the beginning, and 
was even driven to complaisance, if not generosity, to the 
orderly who tied his queue. Worst of all, he was reduced to 
living upon his pay. His mess was poor and suspicious, 
without money to lend, and His Excellency had expelled the 
i Jews upon considerations of victualling. Alas for the Hon. 
j Frederick ! Shall we weep for a youthful man-about-town 
whose times of fatness are over, whose visits to Newmarket, 

1 whose dalliance with the ladies of the New Italian Opera are 
< memories which embitter the sordidness of an unappetising 
present ? In truth, I find myself unable to weep. 

“ Shut that door, Mr. Scrivener, and be seated, sir. We 
will, if you please, converse in a low tone, sir ; my man is as 
trusty as another, but — ye onderstand ? ’Tis my belief that 
! these fellows know more English than we suspict.” 

The youth nodded, and felt himself swell with importance. 
What might be coming ? 

"lama new-comer, Mr. Scrivener, but in what afiicts the 
honour of the Hardenbergs I am as staunch as the oldust 


324 


CRISIS 


mimber of our mess. As ye are aware, I was not present at 
a certain ceremony, the matter of the colour. Ye take me ? ” 
The lad flushed painfully, and wished himself anywhere but 
where he was. A tremendous duty had devolved upon him, 
one of the youngest men of his mess, and as it chanced, and, 
as we know already, a craven. It had fallen to him by lot, j 
and his comrades were allowing him to execute this duty at 
his leisure and in his own way ; he had been given to under- 
stand that there was no galloping hurry in the matter so 
that the business were put through, when it was put through, 
to the satisfaction of the mess. Meanwhile, this duty had | 
eaten and drunk with him, slept and walked with him. “I j 
understand, Major,” said he, with dry lips. 

“Ye drew the black bean, I think. No words, Mr. Scrivener, 
just a nod. I thank ye. And, while I think of it, there was 
a second ballot, unless I’ve been misinformed. Now, with 
which ensign of theirs were ye paired off, may I ask ? ” 

The poltroon quailed visibly, moistening dry lips ; the j 
Major, thinking his own thoughts, failed to notice his agita- 
tion, and intervened. 

“ But there, don’t tell me. No names. I prefer not to 
know. It might easily be inconvenient. Well, as to yer 
juty ; I am sure, sir, that ye have done all that is possible 
in the time at your disposal. ’Tis an affair that cannot be | 
driven post-haste. But, onless I am misinformed, ye have 
not up till to-night had the opporchunity for which ye are 
seeking. Just so. By the by, ye have not yet given yer j 
proofs, I think ? Just so. Yer day will come ; all in good 
time, Mr. Scrivener ; but in this matter, if ye will be guided 
by me, ye will not do anything hastily. The Governor is — 
is forewarned, sir. I may as well tell ye that I am ondher a 
fortnight’s arrest at this moment for so much as speaking — 
speaking to a man of the 12th — I am. 

“ In Sir George’s present humour, Mr. Scrivener, it would 
probably cost ye your commission to be seen in the same tavern 
with a gentleman of their mess. You will not get the oppor- ! 
chunity yet, believe me.” 

The youth experienced an immense relief ; his bosom 
heaved, it was reprieve. 

“ I — I ” he began, but Boyle raised a finger. 

“Ye are justly jealous for your reputeetion, sir; say no 
more. The mess shall not misconceive ye, I pass ye my wor’rd. ! 
I will merely beg ye to do nothing for a fortnight. Then I 
will advise ye further. And now, good-night to ye.” 

The lad left the room walking upon feathers ; he had at any j 
rate another fortnight of reputation left to him. Boyle ' 
yawned. 


MORE MEANWHILE HAPPENINGS 


325 


“ Faugh a ballagh ! as they say in the Rangers, “ 'tis good 
to be seein’ yer way. This talk will tie him up ontil I am 
about again, and able to attind to me business. If I could 
anyway get a smack at me fince I would always clear ut, or 
fall like a gintleman ; but to be crossed at me lep by an 
omadaun — no ! ” He flung off his clothes and was asleep in 
two minutes. 


CHAPTER VII 




"the last infirmity of noble minds” 

"The last infirmity of noble minds” fe, not necessarily 
ambition, nor was the instance which we are now to consider 
an easily recognisable manifestation of the august frailty. 

In truth, there be as many types of great souls as of their 
foils, and to each its peculiar besetment ; but, speaking 
broadly, the noble and the base alike fall into two categories, 
and these are not, as might be supposed, the good and the bad, 
or the gentle and the simple, the prescient and the obtuse ; 
no, nor male and female, but just Masters and Servants, 
intelligences which, whether they inhabit kaisers or slaves, 
cow-punchers or housewives, can only express and content 
themselves by governing ; and that other class, equally right 
and necessary, with innate possibilities of grandeur, which, 
wearing, it may be, the trappings of kings, or the navvy’s 
fustians, are essentially servants. 

To every individual of either category life presents its touch- 
stone, and watches the master-soul step forth and grasp at 
empery, empery, at all costs to self, and to those dearer than 
self ; empery at expense of ideals and character, or nobly 
resign its opportunity ; or again, if the trial be of one funda- 
mentally created for service, observes what form the sacrifice 
assumes, and how, if it be accepted, the chance is used. 

Our Major was of — which class, think you ? Turn it over 
in your minds, my masters (be assured he had never turned 
it over in his). 

When His Excellency, and His Excellency’s linkman had 
descended the steps, Boyle stalking sullenly before them, and 
had passed out of hearing, the ladies simultaneously gasped, 
loosened their tongues, and, so to say, flung themselves upon 
their cavalier for corroboration and support. “ He saids,” 
” I saids,” “ Did ye evers ? ” flew like rice at a wedding. The 
way to Prince Frederic Street was shortened by breathless 
recapitulation of wrongs, the wretch had spoilt a lady’s debut, 
wasted her frock and her evening, and pursued her with 

326 


“THE LAST INFIRMITY OF NOBLE MINDS ” 327 


importunate attentions to the edge of a brawl. “ A monster, 
my dear!” “A brute, my love!” “What breeding can 
the creature have had ? One must think that in his own 
country (Ireland, no doubt) the male chases the female with a 
club ! ” 

The absent was very much in the wrong and vehemently 
abused ; perhaps too vindictively, thought Justin, critically 
silent and awaiting reaction. This delayed, indeed, until 
recognition of his own behaviour having been unstintingly 
accorded, and hearty good-nights wished, he had covered and 
turned to go. 

“ La ! what an adventure, my love,” laughed Mrs. Lamb, 
safe upon her own threshold, the door in her hand. 

“ And, what a man ! ” simpered Mrs. Hollinghurst under 
her breath, unaware that the Major was still within hearing. 

Justin’s ears burnt. He knew, few better, the mysterious 
sexual attraction felt by women towards the imperiously 
selfish, the brutally dominant of the other sex. Without 
reasoning upon his observations he knew, as any one of us 
who is over forty must know, that from the steps of the 
Throne downward, the square-jawed, hard-eyed Master of 
Men holds woman in the hollow of his hand. The memory 
pf the Reichs-Kanzler who precipitated a European con- 
vulsion, of which the end is still unseen, is a cult with the 
womanhood of Germany ; the Corsican who sent armies 
cheering to certain death never lacked a woman’s heart to 
play with, break, and toss aside. Justin, watching a narrower 
stage, had seen what he had seen. Twenty years before had 
he not beheld the lady of his heart captivated against her 
judgement, and despite her will ? Her daughter, his ward, 
the new-found and already tenderly beloved child, for whom 
he was feeling a father’s solicitude, and at whose feet he was 
laying the unspoiled devotions and tenderness of a heart that 
had missed its mark and never known the delights of paternity, 
this more than daughter, the offspring of his lost Agatha, 
had fallen a victim to this rake-ruffian in her turn ; and now, 
before the Moloch-altar of sense and greed stood J ulia Holling- 
hurst, a third victim garlanded and petulantly smiling. 

Nothing but his accidental presence had saved the woman 
from abject surrender. But he could not always be at her 
side. Nor had he warrant. She did not care for him (he 
thought); nor he for her (he believed ; l^eing wrong upon both 
points). And yet, was it not his duty to save her ? And 
Sue ? He distrusted the girl’s future, and rightly, whilst 
Boyle, her husband, or semi-husband, was above ground. 

Fourteen days’ arrest had the Governor awarded. Four- 
teen days of grace were permitted him, no more. But 


CRISIS 


328 

much may be done in a fortnight by a determined man. 
Which way did Duty beckon ? 

Hunting men and soldiers are what they are by virtue of 
swift decisions. The commander who goes reconnoitring and 
ogling up to his kopjes never catches his De Wet, and a fox- 
hunter who must have a look at his fences before having a 
smack at them is seldom where we all of us would like to be — 
in the first half-dozen. India was not won for us by men 
who counted heads and weighed chances, nor would the Major 
have emerged from the ruck upon such lines. 

The happiness, the welfare, the safety of two women de- 
pended, as it seemed to Justin, upon what use he made of 
these days of grace. Some men, brave men, even, would have 
sate them down to consider, to balance, to review the past 
and forecast the future ; would have had their hot fits and 
their cold, hearkening alternately to the higher and to the 
lower impulses ; would have resolved and weakened, and 
found themselves upon the fourteenth evening where they 
had stood on the first, and with slackened wills and shaking 
knees, allowed themselves to be whipped by the imminent event 
up to the leap which they should have taken in the first fine 
enthusiasm of the run. 

Justin asked no man for a lead ; he went, late as it was, 
straight to the Convent, and sent in his name for an audience. 

Something unusual was afoot. In the anteroom a young 
Moor, his head bloodily bandaged, squatted impassively 
under the surgeon’s hands. 

“ Justin of the 12th ? Send him in,” said His Excellency’s 
voice from behind a half-opened door. 

The Major entered ; His Excellency, who was standing, 
acknowledged his caller’s salute with a kindly nod, both 
hands being engaged at the moment in drying a damp and 
crumpled scrap of paper over the flame of a shaded candle. 
Other scraps strewed the cloth. 

“ Glad to see ye, Justin. I need your help. Sit ye down 
and tell me what ye make of these. ’Tis a cypher despatch 
from Tangier, as I think. The pieces were pellets a minute 
since. We took them from the messenger’s ears. His boat 
was sunk by a Spanish Guarda Costa off the point, and the 
fellow has taken a small wound, but swam ashore and made 
his way to me unhelped.” 

Whilst speaking Sir George had dried the last of the scraps 
and laid it beside the rest. All were of brittle, Spanish-made 
paper, soiled and minutely creased by the treatment to which 
they had been subjected. To reconstitute a legible document 
from such materials promised to be a tedious business ; and 
had Justin come to his chief obsessed by the impatience 


“THE LAST INFIRMITY OF NOBLE MINDS ” 329 

which is the shadow of indecision, he might have found it 
impossible to concentrate his faculties upon the task which 
awaited him ; but the man’s mind was made up, and at rest ; 
there was nothing more for him to do at the moment ; he 
grappled whole-heartedly with his task. 

“ They fit, sir ; see,” he remarked at the end of a few 
minutes. 

“ But where is the writing ? ** asked the Governor in- 
credulously, peering beside him, glasses on nose. 

“ Upon the other side, possibly,” suggested Justin. “ Ah, 
we have it ! ” 

“ Eh ? What’s the man thinking of ? ’Tis not our agreed 
cypher. I have no key to this. Tut, tut, this looks ill. 
One would suppose some one has seized his papers and found 
the key. What script is this, sir ? ” 

“ ’Tis the Canarese character, sir, but mighty poorly writ, 
and spells mere nonsense. Oh, stay ! it reads backwards, 
and from the bottom. Give me a sheet or two of paper, sir, 
I beg, and a minute ” 

“ As many as ye please, major,” replied the great man 
encouragingly. “If ye have the right sow by the ear, I’ll 
attend your leisure.” 

Justin figured steadily and with few deletions for a couple 
of minutes. “ I make it run thus, Sir George. 

“ They ha’e garred his drover in tolbooth lie. 

And ta laird of Stobs maun ca’ his ain kye. 

Vail ta gillie qua brings ye these, 

A baxter’s dizzen o’ gowd bawbees.” 

“ Is it sense ? Can ye make anything ? ” 

The Governor was taking snuff, and enjoyed his sneeze 
before replying. “ I didna think Logie was among the 
prophets. ’Tis not from the Reliques, anyway ! Plain ? 
Oh, ’tis plain enough, I am sorry to say, thanks to yourself, 
sir. Stobs is my own bye-name, which none but a Scotsman 
would have known, or used. Which of my countrymen this 
may be is the question P For, though it is a hundred chances 
to one that it is from my friend Mr. Logie, His Majesty’s 
Agent in Barbary, yet I should like well to know why he, if 
this be from him, has not couched the whole of it in this 
Indian tongue if he felt reduced to using it at all, and so 
writ me at large and particularly.” 

“ I conceive from the lettering, sir, that whoever wrote this 
has forgot near all the Canarese he ever knew save the char- 
acter, and he is weak even in that.” 

“ Which might explain it. I mind he was in the Indies 
years since as a youth. Plainly he dared use no European 


CRISIS 


330 

speech. Barbary swarms with renegadoes. But I'd have 
thought he might have risked broad Scots ballad terms ; and 

yet Now I think on’t, there was a Gordon of the Catholic 

branch quartered in San Roque not a year since. I opine, then, 
’tis Logie, and my friend must have been in extremity before 
he would send such a screed as yon.” The speaker paced the 
room. “ Sir, I will not conceal my predicament from ye ; and 
indeed you, whom I have to thank for reading my riddle, cannot 
have missed its drift.” The men’s eyes met across the lighted 
table. Justin bowed, the Governor’s face was of the gravest. 
“ It stands thus, sir : His Most Catholic Majesty has bought 
the goodwill of the Shereef. The ports will be closed to us ; 
no more cattle-boats from Tetuan.” 

The dry admission covered a big fact and an ugly one. 
King George’s Spanish stronghold always had been, and was 
still, dependent for its meat supplies upon the neutrality of 
the Moorish Sultan. The first blow from Madrid had choked 
this source. “ The Emperor of Barbary has failed us, Justin, 
and, as I understand this, poor Logie has been arrested and 
is in fear of his life. Nothing less. His messenger might tell 
us something, but the boy speaks nought but his Moghrebi, 
and to my sorrow I know not where to put my hand upon a 
competent and trusty interpreter.” The Governor pinched 
his lip, thinking of the hybrid crew of Jews and Genoese 
whom he had expelled at the opening of the siege. Justin 
spoke. 

■■ There is an ensign in the 73rd, sir, young Chisholm, who 
has the very gift of tongues, and has worked at this Barbary 
speech. It is just a chance that he may prove useful. Have 
I your permission to bring him to you ? ” 

“You will do so to-night, sir, and I thank ye again : but, 
first for this business of your own ? ” 

This private concern of the Major’s had dwindled somewhat 
since it had found itself in the neighbourhood of an impending 
need which might easily become public calamity. Yet, there 
was no self in his claim, and he was able to meet the Governor’s 
eye. He threw up his chin and spoke. 

“ I desire your good leave, Sir George, to resign my com- 
mission, within a week if it may be, but at longest within 
fourteen days.” 

Eliott’s eye widened, and there were slight changes in the 
set of a noble and otherwise immobile countenance which 
found it kindly and left it harsh and anxious. The man 
governed the swift umbrage which drove the blood to his 
eyes, and having paced the room twice, and well considered 
the matter, delivered himself thus : 

“ This is an outcome of to-night's altercation ? ” 


“THE LAST INFIRMITY OF NOBLE MINDS ” 


331 




I cannot deny it, sir.” 

*- Has the fellow sent ye his friend ? ” 

” He has not, sir.” 

“ Have ye sent him yours ? As man to man, sir ! ” 

“ As man to man, sir, I have not.” 

“ Then, why, in God’s name ? — I have it ! Ye are pro- 
posing to do so.” 

“ Your pardon, Sir George, but ye push me too hard. I 
had hoped ” 

He stopped, the Governor had stayed him with a gesture 
of his hand, and Justin, with every belief in his cause, and 
with full intention to persist in his resolve, found, as thousands 
of men had found already, and more were destined to find, 
that he was in the presence of a great man. In truth George 
Augustus Eliott was one of the greatest men of his time, a 
leader of men, and a master of the art of war. He had set 
himself in youth to study every nut and pinion of the machine, 
called an army in the field, had learnt all that the masters of 
the craft in France and in Germany could teach him, had made 
a dozen campaigns, taken his wounds, seized his chances, 
had been mentioned in despatches times without number. 
But, far and away beyond the mere soldier of fortune was he ; 
as an infantryman he was unsurpassed ; as a trainer and 
leader of cavalry he has never had a superior in the British 
army since Cromwell, whilst he was an engineer before there 
was a corps of engineers in the service. This was of course 
known to Justin, but he was now to make acquaintance with 
the heart of the man himself, the fine humanity which busied 
itself unweariedly with the comforts of his command ; yes, 
with the bed and food of the common soldier, and with the 
farriery, forage, and saddlery of his horse. This was the man 
who, during a winter march in Germany, slept with his troops 
upon the bare ground, and would share their exact rations, 
denying himself meat, who drank nothing but water, and who 
throughout the siege now opening sent to the public market 
the presents of fruit made to him by the Spanish General. 

To such a leader as this, such a subordinate as our friend 


I 


Justin finds it painful to give pain. 

“ Mr. Justin,” said the Governor at length, “ I will do for 
you what I would not do for another of your rank in this 
garrison. I will reason this out with ye. Draw up that 
chair, sir ; sit. 

“ To begin, I might grant your request on conditions : say 
that ye sailed, or at least reported yourself on shipboard 
upon parole not to land again, within the time ye assign. But 
that would not please ye.” 

“ It would not, sir ; and, indeed, since ye are so good as 


332 CRISIS 

to treat me thus, I can do no less than place my case in your 
hands.” 

“ This is better ; I had hoped for your confidence,” smiled 
His Excellency, extending his snuff-box, and settling himself 
to listen. 

“ It is no question of my own honour, Sir George — as to 
that I have passed my word to ye ; but the honours of two 
ladies are touched, and one of the two is my ward.” 

Ye had best apprise me of all the circumstances, sir,” 
said the Governor, and Justin, still willing to lay his life in the 
scale to serve his gentle friends, laid his honour there instead, 
with a sigh. 

“ I perceive,” said the Governor, when the recital ended, 
“ we have a notorious person upon our hands, a devil of a 
fellow, who is neither to hold nor bind. I had his dossier , 
his history, sent to me from Home. He has tangled a dozen 
skeins already, and you, sir, are for letting him kill you by way 
of disentangling yours.” 

i£ You are pleased to smile at me, Sir George, but, for myself, 
I make no doubt whatever of killing him.” 

The quiet, absolute assurance of the reply pleased the old 
soldier ; his mouth worked slightly. “ An excellent spirit 
with which to go upon the ground, sir ; but I remember that 
this person has the bloods of six gentlemen upon his hands 
already, and as a swordsman has certainly a foot the advan- 
tage of ye in reach. But this is neither here nor there. It 
must not, and shall not come to this. Nay, I am not playing 
the commander at the moment, but the man, your friend, if 
ye will let me. Mr. Justin, ye are seeking to know your duty 
and to do it, but there are higher duties and lower (as to which 
presently) ; for the moment I would have ye notice that ye 
are, as it seems to me, asking to see more than God Almighty 
is willing to show ye. Tak’ patience, man ; the end is not in 
fourteen days, nor in forty ; no, nor four hunder. Ye are for 
forcing the Lord’s hand ; ye are for driving maitters till an 
issue, whether He wills it or no. Has He nae ither wark for ye, 
think ye ? (I put King George, and my puir self, his servant 
and your commander, clean oot o’ coort for the moment.) 
The case I lay before ye is as between yer Maker and yersel’. 
Believe me, sir, no good wark is dune by ootrinning one’s 
commeesion. 

“ In the maitter o’ the wumman, noo ” — the great man’s 
voice dropped deeper and deeper into his native Doric — 

a leddy’s honour, the honours o’ twa leddies, are precious 
things ; and between you and me, sir, we will safeguard them, 
even from this rumbustious callant ; but, say we were to fail, 
what were twa or twa hunder siclike beside the honour of the 


“THE LAST INFIRMITY OF NOBLE MINDS ” 333 


thing we guard, you and I, under God ? The fortress com- 
mitted to us, the apple o’ King Geordie’s e’e ? his point of 
honour ! D’ye feel in yer inmost sawl that yer duty towards 
a lassie ootsets yer duty t’yer King, and to me, me ? ... I 
canna spare ye, Justin. Nay, man, the King we baith sairve 
canna spare ye.” 

The great, brick-red face, with its broad snuffy upper lip, 
was looming half across the table ; the dominant eyes pressed 
for an answer. Never in his life had Justin felt as he felt then, 
torn by the disintegrating claims of conflicting emergencies. 

Out came the great, hard sword-hand of his chief. “ Tak’ 
it, mon, stan’ by me. Ma conscience ! but I want the likes o’ 
ye, Justin ! ” 

There was no resisting the voice and presence that had 
never failed in their appeal to a soldier, which had rallied the 
breaking ranks amid the carnage of Fontenoy, and had steadied 
and heartened fever-shaken troopers in the night attacks 
around Havanna. The men’s hands met. Justin’s bosom 
swelled ; here was a leader worth dying for, if need were. 

It was thus that Eliott ruled. 

“ That’s weel. And now, sir, to business ; the King’s 
business. I was at Rock Gun Battery at sunset. We have 
a fine prospect from there, better than from the Signal Station, 
and, unless I am deceived, this pause in the operations is 
nearing its end. There are more tents behind San Roque, 
and something doing on the isthmus. I opine that the first 
attack will be directed against my North Front.” 

“ Forbes’s Barrier and the Queen’s Lines ? ” whispered 
Justin, all close attention. 

“ Yes ; probably there. Now, to meet them I must have 
good troops under a good man. ’Twill be no affair of gunnery 
when it comes, but a night attack, and close fighting ; his 
best men against my best. 

“ I shall post you, sir, in the Queen’s Lines.” 

Justin arose saluting, a grave joy upon his face. “ My wing, 
sir, will be proud ” 

“ Nay, your regiment, sir, the good old 12th Foot, ay, 
and with yourself as commandant. Ye do not understand. 
’Tis thus. By despatches just received your Colonel gets his 
step : he will be one of my two Brigadier Majors, and by the 
same mail by express command from His Majesty’s minister 
(whom ye would seem to have favourably impressed), I am 
bidden to apprise ye that the vacant colonelcy is at your 
disposal at the regulation price. May I take it that ye accept ? 
And — stay yet a moment ” — for Justin was opening his lips. 
“ If your means, or remittances, of which I know nothing, 
should forbid, or— or deter ye, sir, from accepting the step, 


334 


CRISIS 


I make it a maitter of pairsonal intercession wi’ ye that ye shall 
pairmet me to advance ye the — the — the — money (there’s 
nae ither word for’t). Now, sir ! ” 

Justin’s hand had fallen to his side when he completed his 
salute. It mechanically arose again, faltered, and fell. His 
face was stonily hard and pale with emotion. 

“ I have passed ye my word, Sir George, or ” 

“ Na, na, man, we ha’e shaken hands upon it ; there can be 
nae rinnin’ back. And noo there’s nae thing left but to touch 
glasses and drink to the lieutenant-colonel-designate.” He 
moved to a cupboard in the wall. 

The door closed behind his visitor. The Governor heard 
the sentry present arms. He put away the wine, smiling. 

“ There’s a man for ye. Gin I had tellt him of his step before 
getting his word I wad never have got it at all. Heh ! there’s 
ane tribble dune with, but what aboot Logie and my beef ? ” 
And now, sirs, was our Major by nature a Master or a 
Servant ? 


CHAPTER VIII 


DANGER 

Three weeks had gone by. Major Justin, without intending 
it, has drifted into the most friendly relations with Mrs. 
Hollinghurst. Her helplessness and inexperience, which had 
already twice called for his intervention upon her behalf, still 
claim his assistance. One might say that she leans upon his 
judgement ; he calls and calls again, and is always welcome, 
is, indeed, sent for, his advice asked, and, what is rarer, acted 
upon. The lady improves upon acquaintance ; her small 
affectations, her trifling lapses from perfect good breeding, 
have ceased to annoy him. She is an agreeable person, he 
I has discovered, somewhat wanting in knowledge of the world, 
i needing the help which he would be a churl to refuse. (Oh, 

; Major Justin !) But, unknown to the lady, it was her motherly 
attitude towards the motherless girl, her house-mate, that had 
. attracted that girl’s guardian. 

Major Boyle, meanwhile, after nibbling his nails in enforced 
detention for a couple of weeks, has found the door of the lady 
I of his too impetuous affections resolutely closed to him. He 
has written, but his letters are returned to him. He is swearing 
that his honour is engaged, that he will sit down before this 
► fortress for a year, for two years if necessary ; win her, he will. 
After the mode of his day, he has backed himself in guineas. 
As for the lot of any man who is so ill-advised as to come 
between them, it is to be inferred that brief and tragic will be 
the fate of that man. This is the face the man keeps for his 
world ; inwardly he knows that his bolt is shot, and is forming 
his plan. 

And the regiments are still kept apart, and their officers 
are as watchfully polite as ever. It is plain that the end is 
not yet. 

It is a Monday morning, the early parades are dismissed, the 
men to the canteens and grog-shops and to their loafing along 
the curtain wall, their officers to their taverns and their daily 
constitutionals in the cooler airs of the Upper Rock. 


335 


CRISIS 


336 

Colonel Justin takes the zigzag track above the camp 
of the second battalion of the Highland Regiment (the first 
holds the King’s Bastion). Their pipers, secure in the seclusion 
of a seldom-trodden lane between blank walls, are practising 
the regimental quick-step, pacing smartly back and forth the 
while ; the air throbs to the drone. At the ancient Jewish 
burial-ground above he pauses to glance at the sallow marble j 
slabs with their Hebrew inscriptions laid flat amid the mountain 
flowers, stays his half minute and moves on, upward and still 
upward, until the narrow track crosses the spine of the sierra 
and dips down again to a secluded nook which he has dis- 
covered on the eastern face, known as Mediterranean Battery. 
The place is as remote as the crow’s-nest of a seventy-four ; the 
unmolested wild life of it, half tame ; a small blue thrush sits 
and sings there by the hour, perched upon the muzzle of a gun. 
Eagles pass and repass between it and the wrinkled, crawling 
blue of the distant sea. He enjoys the solitude. There he 
seats himself, takes out his book, opens it, lays it face down- 
ward upon the parapet, and sets himself to think. 

This woman who has come into his life in the last two 
months has apparently come to stay. 

Unannounced, unintroduced, this sweet stranger had slipped 
in, a tiresome intruder at the first, with her pettinesses, her 
chat on shipboard ; he had left her largely to the companion- | 
ship of the other, until the man’s coarseness stood self -revealed, | 
and in sheer compassion the Englishman had interposed for 
the woman’s good. “The fellow is amusing himself at her 
expense ; this voyage over, ’tis a thousand to one if he will 
so much as cross the street to address a word to her, whilst 
she — in another day of this sort of thing — may find her 
affections hopelessly engaged. I’ll go as far as to offer myself 
as a foil.” He could smile now at the coxcombical attitude 
he had struck. A foil ! It had got beyond that, both towards 
the man and the woman : buttons were off. 

And it had all come about so naturally, so silently, so in- 
advertently : for he had his scheme of life at his fingers’ ends, j 
cut and dried. He had not intended to marry. After that 
early disappointment, of which we know something, Justin 
had put woman out of his life and had determined to live for 
his profession. His trusteeship, an interlude and intrusion, 
was still but imperfectly concluded : Susan was not out of 
danger, must be watched over, and protected from her legal 
husband ; but his King, his Commander-in-Chief, and his 
regiment had claims upon all that was left of him. Love 
must not deflect him from his duty. 

But apparently it was to be. Whether he loved this lady 
or no (and upon this point he was not so well assured as he 


DANGER 


337 

could have wished to be), *twas plain that she loved him. 
The knowledge of this had come to him with a shock, there 
was no doubt of it, and the appeal of a woman’s love is to 
J most men irresistible : it was to Justin. What was his right 
course ? As a man of honour, now ? Was there a retreat 
j: open to him ? And again, did he desire to retreat ? 

To these questions he had found no satisfactory answers, 
: albeit he had come to this little-frequented spot for a week 
i! past, morning by morning, to think them out. 

Meanwhile, how were things going upon the other side of 
i the hedge ? In that old Spanish house in Prince Frederic 
Street, barred like a jail, as is due to a dwelling which has 
i seen three of the fourteen sieges which the Rock has sustained, 
the ladies are discussing the matter, as they have discussed it 
daily for weeks. 

The little dark room is littered with reels and bobbins, 

1 paper patterns and pieces of material, for Mrs. Hollinghurst, 
who is clever with her fingers, is repaying her hostess’s 
hospitality with a wonderful new robe, a marvellous creation, 

I which is to take the Alameda by storm this very night. 

“ I shall look monstrous handsome, I profess, my dear ! 

; How the Colonel’s ladies will quizz, how the men will stare ! ” 
j laughs Mrs. Lamb in high good-humour, rustling and tip-toeing 
' before her glass like a peacock in his pride. “ And, well, 
my dear, to come back to what I was saying, I do say that I 
\ regard ye as a most fortunate woman. If there is an eel in 
: your bag of snakes, if — I say ” 

“ I have my hand upon him ? Thank ye, my dear, but 
isn’t that not very pretty comparison usually used of us ? . . . 
And ye really think ? ” 

“ That the Major — the Colonel, I would say — is a gentle- 
1, man. Yes. I have watched him with ye, and I have made 
t inquiries (my woman has friends at the other end of the 
town) ; he is well liked in his regiment, kind and merciful to 
i, his men ; he has a heart, my dear, which is more than can be 
said of all of his sex, I do assure ye. I have not lived in a 
garrison town these three years with my eyes shut, and the 
things I have seen, and what the unfortunate privates must 
put up with, you would never credit. But he has a heart. 
I " Yes, ye are lucky. There are women and women : ye 
s: are not built to stand alone.” Mrs. Hollinghurst pouted. 
■ l And since ’tis your destiny to marry again, why, the sooner 
the better, for here ’tis wasps to honey, and some of the 
creatures have stings, my dear. I profess I have hardly yet 
I got back my natural sleep after that night adventure. If 
no one had come up ! If the Governor had not appeared just 

22 


CRISIS 


338 

when he did, the gentlemen would certainly have come to 
blows about ye, and then ” 

“ I know, I know,” mourned Mrs. Hollinghurst ruefully : 
“ a woman’s name is easily blown upon. We need all the 
protection ’ ’ 

“ La, my dear, ye were offered too much of it on that 
occasion.” 

“Mrs. Lamb,” cried the other, laying down her needle, 
“ if I did not know ye for a lady of the nicest mind, I should 
have been tempted to think — I will thank ye never to use 
that word in that connection in my hearing again.” 

Mrs. Lamb whirled around the tiny work-table and folded 
the angry little woman to her bosom. “ Forgive me, my dear. 
I am the greatest tease in the world, but there is no harm in 
me. ’Tis just a spark of envy, my dear, no more, to see ye 
so happy, and him such a fine creature. And to think what 
your fate might have been with that wretch, that adventurer ; 
yes, the word is writ plain all over the man.” 

The ladies kissed and were reconciled, work went on, 
needles flashed, fullness was taken in, pleatings and insertions, 
gathers and gores were dealt with, and ever the name and the 
good points of Colonel Wade Justin appeared and reappeared 
as a sort of permanent background to their thoughts. 


And the Colonel thinks and thinks and comes to no con- 
clusion : his lips move pleasantly at times, half-consciously 
forming a name, and are smilingly called to order. The man 
is feeling astonishingly well, younger, lighter-hearted, stronger, 
and more himself than he has felt for years. The worn, 
relapsing mental cast of middle-age, which, however resolutely 
thrust off, had been growing upon him of late, was gone. 
Things were going well with him. This belated fortune had 
come with a rush. The overdue tides of success, strangers to 
his life, were at flood. His quest had prospered out of all 
reason : a couple of delightful young people had been added 
to his circle, nay, to his family. Incidentally — and this, too, 
was gratifying — he seemed to have won, somehow, the goodwill 
of his General ; and had been most surprisingly singled out 
for promotion by the favour of his Sovereign. And — and — he 
paused, hesitating to formulate the last and sweetest success 
which seemed in store for him. 

He sate so still that the small blue thrush sang near him 
unaffrighted, and as he sat, the mountain silences and the 
lofty beauty of the view unconsciously stimulated his imagina- 
tion. He played with his happiness as a child with some 
delightful new toy, but the witchery of nature was a- work and 


DANGER 


moving within him ; his brain began to teem with imagery, his 
lips to move, inspired by the scene which he had passed without 
remark upon his way to the place. 

“For there, half-hid among the flowering weed. 

Lie yellowing tablets, facing the south-west" 

(Nay, it should go otherwise ; like this, say) — 

" See, over-flourished by incroaching weed, 

These yellowing marbles front the alien west, 

Graven with characters which few may read 
(As if proud reticence became them best), 

Where a few wandering sons of Israel’s seed, 

Weary with clinging to a worn-out creed, 

Have lain them down amid the flowers to rest. 

And over them the partridge leads her brood. 

The chequered lizard comes to take the sun — " 

The thread snapped, an intrusive touch from without 
intervening. The small blue thrush had ceased singing. An 
eagle was passing silently below ; the dreamer’s mind came 
home to him ; he marked the big bird follow the curvatures 
of the cliff face, almost touching them with the ragged, open 
wing-tips extended so stiffly. The incident changed the 
, colour of his thoughts, but not for long, the undersong of his 
happiness was running too strongly within him, too insistently, 
albeit he listened to it with but half his mind, nor sought to 
analyse its theme, and presently his lips again began to move 
in metre : 

“ Dappled with tender amethyst it lay 

Where the light pinions of the wind went by. 

Yet was the crystal dome of region sky 
Aloft no bluer than that famous bay. 

And, covering with green its gashes grey, 

The Warder Rock between them towered high. 

' The brotherhood of heroes,’ mused I 
(The spot seemed worthy of the noblest clay), 

Ever was careless in its choice of graves. 

Such usage as their right, these turrets claim. 

Grim border towers refusing fealty 

Whether to storming clouds or sapping waves, 

Yet craving human fellowship, questioning why 
No man hath planted here the flower of his name." 

The rhapsodist came back to earth, and to himself with a 
little gasp, looked about him shyly, smote his hands together 
and laughed. What in the world ails me ? I have not done 
such a thing for — for — for twenty years ! " 

A step upon the path above aroused him ; he glanced up 


CRISIS 


340 

in some surprise, his meditations here never having been 
interrupted hitherto. That the stranger had business with 
himself did not cross his mind ; he would probably be some 
adventurous middy from the squadron exploring the Rock, 
who would be properly chagrined at finding himself in a cul- 
de-sac, for the zigzags which conduct to the battery stop 
there, nor has human foot yet reached or left the place by 
another road. This must needs be a stranger, for the work 
was an engineer’s tour de force, never manned, seldom inspected, 
being useless from a military point of view. 

Nearer came the footfalls. Justin raised his eyes ; there, 
in the gut of the approach, between the parapet and the door 
of the case-mate, stood Major Boyle ; and from the sombre 
satisfaction upon his visitor’s face, Justin knew that this was 
no unpremeditated meeting, and recognised that his own 
position was critical. 

As we have already seen, the Englishman had a girt of 
opportune silence. He left it to his visitor to explain his 
errand. 

The Irishman was carrying a small parcel wrapped in a 
handkerchiei ; this he placed carefully upon the breach of a 
gun and stood for a moment as if gauging the capabilities of 
a place which he saw for the first time for a purpose of his own. 
Like other visitors to the Mediterranean Battery, he was 
surprised by its extreme smallness and the absence of other 
means of access. He must leave it by the same road by which 
he had come. The discovery displeased him, for it discon- 
certed one part, and that an important part, of his plan. For 
the Major had a plan. He had come to his farthest ; Mrs. 
Hollinghurst, he perceived plainly, was not ior him ; his wagers 
and boasts were but blinds to cover a larger scheme than a 
hopeless suit. During his weeks of arrest he had promised 
himself, as we know, full and adequate revenge upon Justin, 
but his rival had now got his step, and, apart from the 
Governor’s injunction, discipline forbade sending a cartel to 
a man of superior rank. Nor if, by some unimaginable chance, 
a hostile meeting could have been agreed to, arranged, and 
brought off, would it have been possible to have kept it from 
the Governor’s knowledge, or to have escaped condign punish- 
ment ? 

Yet, satisfaction Boyle must have, and before he left — for 
the man had found his position intolerable, and had made 
up his mind to offer his sword and topographical knowledge 
to the besiegers. He would fight (kill) Colonel Justin first, 
then effect his escape. Characteristically, he had made no 
definite arrangements, much depended upon where and how 
he met his enemy. In a word, he backed his luck. The 


DANGER 


f 


341 


thing had been done a hundred times by privates ; why not by 
himself ? He could climb and swim ; the back of the Rock, 
he thought, was always possible. A path would, of course, 
have been preferable, but he must risk it ; here, at any rate, 
was his man. 

He spoke. 

"Ye know what I have come about ? ” 

“ Not in the least.” 

“ 1 tell ye ye do : don’t lie to me, sir ! ” He tapped the 
parcel, from which he was removing the wrapping ; it was a 
pistol-case : Justin had seen its like before ; he possessed 
one of the sort. The insult he allowed to pass : words were 
wind, but when it came to action he would give away no 
point. 

“ Well ? ” snarled Boyle, but eliciting no answer, went on, 
“ I have come to fight ye. We will settle the matter between 
us here and now.” 

<£ There is no matter between us, nor ever has been. But 
if there were, you are premature ; where is your friend ? ” 

“Ye are a mighty stickler for regularity ” 

“ I prefer things done according to the usage of gentlemen. 
Say, for the sake of argument, I fight you here without seconds 
— (I shall not) — but say I do, and kill ye, what explanation 
have 1 to offer ? We have nothing between us. More than 
that, we have been warned by the Governor himself. I thank 
ye ; no, sir.” 

•“ If an excuse for fighting is all ye want ” 

“ I desire none.” 

“ I’m inclined to believe ye ! But if an excuse is your cry, 
ye shall not be crying long. Mrs. Hollinghurst ” 

“ I must decline to discuss the lady — or any lady, with you.” 

“ Me own view to a T, sir : I did not come here to discuss, 
but to fight. As for the explanations ye mintioned, do not 
fash yer thumb with thim : ye’ll be called upon for none, nor 
for annything ilse when I’ve finished with ye,” said Boyle, 
with a confidence at once ferocious and superb. 

“ Take yer weapon, sir ; here is yer choice, they are a pair, 

! loaded by mysilf in the presince of reputable witnusses : 
my mess is in this, ye will onderstand.” The man was advanc- 
ing upon Justin with a pistol in each hand held by the barrel. 

“ I decline to touch your arms : your demand is utterly 
irregular and unwarranted,” replied the Englishman, his 
hands behind him. He had risen, as was natural, but his 
attitude betrayed no fear, his eye had narrowed, but was 
steady, his voice was under control ; but these signs of self- 
mastery were hidden from an insolent foe whose patience 
was at an end. 


342 


CRISIS 


Laying down the pistol which he had been holding in his 
right upon the parapet of the battery, Boyle advanced upon 
his enemy with raised hand. “ There ar’re hor’sus and 
hor’sus — the blood hor’rse that just asks ye to give him his 
head at a fince, and the half-bred cur which must be flogged 
up to his lep. It seems to me, sir, that ye ar’re not a natural 
lepper, and I’ll just be cuffing ye into a shuitable frame of 
mind to take the bohireen.” 

As he spoke he struck — his open hand descended sharply ; but 
inexplicably to himself, missed Justin’s cheek; the smaller 
man, giving ground a few inches, permitted his assailant’s hand 
to brush the breast of his frock, and following it in with a swift 
spring, instantly closed. What happened next the amazed 
aggressor could not precisely recall, nor ever understood. He 
found his right hand caught, turned under, and held in an 
absolutely novel grip (familiar enough to our modern police) ; 
he discovered his enemy in possession ; his bulk and reach 
were of no service to him. Justin, the small, quiet, despised 
man, whom he had held so cheaply, had pinioned him, and 
was holding on, was at his side, yet half behind him, wholly 
beyond his reach ; further, he was conscious of a knee pressing 
beneath his own, swaying, rocking him as it willed, and upon a 

system, whilst he ! Hell ! Suddenly the man saw scarlet, 

the loaded weapon in his left had a meaning (a moment 
before he had thought of dropping it, to get, if he might, some 
use from the fist) ; he shifted his grasp, found the trigger, it 
fell, Justin’s cap rose, and simultaneously Boyle found himself 
upon his back across the breach of a gun, trussed and helpless. 
Justin, who had thrown him and was holding him down, was 
getting his breath ; presently he spoke. 

“ I am sorry you fired ; that came near to murder.” 

The man who had used the pistol could see as much by 
this time, and had nothing to urge. The future opened 
before his eyes and appalled his imagination. He struggled 
with a paroxysm of despairing passion that stirred the gun- 
carriage upon its slides, but availed him nothing. The little 
man’s wrists held, and his own enormous limbs were so dis- 
posed as to be useless to him. 

“ If you do that again, I shall be obliged to put your 
shoulder out,” warned Justin ; and the hoppled giant knew 
that the threat was not an idle one : his right shoulder was as 
nearly as possible dislocated already. 

“ How long are ye going to keep me here ? ” he gasped at 
the end of an interminable ten minutes. 

“ I do not know. . . . Until somebody comes.” 

Boyle ground his teeth. “ Nobody ever does come to this 
cursud place. They tell me it is never visitud by rounds.” 


DANGER 


343 

“ Pardon me ; it is visited by the Garrison Artillery Inspector 
once a week. He was here this morning.” 

“ And — you — mean — to say ” panted the captive 

thickly, for his position had grown extremely uncomfortable, 
“ that — you — will keep me here — like this — until he comes 
again ? I will be a did man in a few hours.” 

“ I do not know. ... I cannot tell. . . . What I do know is 
that I can’t trust ye. . . . Naturally I am hoping that we shall 
be found sooner ; but, for myself, I prefer the risk of waiting 
to turning ye loose.” 

Another forty minutes passed, each one of them an hour ; 
the captive’s face was purple, his breath was taken in jerks, 
his stock was choking him. 

“ Damn — ye, — I — am — dying ! ” His appearance lent 
probability to the assertion. The captor’s bare head was 
throbbing beneath the strengthening sunbeams. 

“ Can I trust ye ? ” he asked at length. 

<f By — God — yes ! . . . Yes, — by — the Mother of God ! ” 
croaked the throttled wretch. 

The grip relaxed, but the man needed help to regain his 
feet : nor could he keep them . Reeling back, he seated himself 
heavily upon the carriage of the gun, staring dully, taking 
thick, short breaths. The misused pistol lay upon the ground 
as it had fallen, some yards away ; its fellow, still loaded, 
upon the parapet within reach of his hand. 

Justin glanced around him in search of his cap. It was 
nowhere to be seen, yet a cap he must have. 

• • • • « 

So Monday passed. Nothing happened to stir the deadly 
monotony of the besieged. A xebec, which had cleared from 
Tetuan with cattle for the forces before the embargo, was 
captured off the point by a Spanish gunboat. Beef rose 
threepence per pound. The Catalan Bay fishermen refused 
to put to sea unless protected by the launches of the squadron, 
but the commodore, refitting for his return voyage, professed 
himself unable to spare the men. 


CHAPTER IX 


MISSING 

Tuesday dawned, another brilliant day ; by noon a rumour 
had run the length of the Rock ; it was known for a certainty 
at the Land Port, for the sentries there had been questioned ; 
’twas known at the Water Port, where the crews of the guard- 
boats had been interrogated ; it was the talk of the South 
Port and the Ragged Staff and the Mole, of the Highlanders 
in the casemates of the King’s Bastion, and of every battery 
along the curtain. It was buzzed in each camp, barrack, 
and quarters, from Europa Point to the new galleries along 
the North Front, that Colonel Justin of the 12th Foot was 
missing. 

To most of those who heard the news the man was but a 
name, albeit to gentlemen bearing His Majesty’s commission 
it was a name that had begun to sound well. To the officers 
of his regiment the missing man was already a valued and 
popular commandant, and the tidings were received with 
incredulous concern. 

In the little house in Prince Frederic Street there were tears. 

But among the Hardenbergs was the secret, dark glee of 
men who have scored at last — not wholly, perhaps, as they 
would have ordered the matter, not precisely according to 
rule, maybe, but who have scored. 

Their C.O., fat, old, and incompetent, knew nothing and said 
as much as he knew. Of their two majors, one had been 
drunk for twenty-four hours, and was, for the moment, the 
most popular man in the regiment ; but, for the rest, from 
the officers’ mess down to the drums, the Hardenbergs were 
as one man in support of their thesis — Colonel Justin had 
deserted. 

Which was absurd. 

The rumour reached Governor Sir George Eliott at the 
Convent, studying the morning states of the corps under his 
command. A sudden and strict man was Governor Eliott ; 


344 


MISSING 


345 

he put two and two together and pounced promptly. Major 
Boyle of the Hardenbergs was taken from his bed and placed 
under close arrest in the cells beneath the Court House ; his 
quarters were sealed up and double sentries posted at the door. 

Search of the strictest began high and low ; interrogations 
also ; testimony trickled in. 

So Tuesday’s sun rode the heavens, baked the waterless 
ledges of the Eastern Face, searched the prickly terraces of 
the western slope, saw what he saw, and sunk to his bed sea- 
ward. And still Mrs. Hollinghurst’s tears fell, and still no 
'{ tidings of lost Colonel Justin. 

Wednesday was another dazzling blue day. Men searched 
still, but with less enthusiasm. As the heat grew, the sentries 
felt faint upon their beats. All nature slept under it, save, 
as the lookout at the Signal Station noticed, the eagles of the 
Eastern Face, which seemed unusually restless, constantly upon 
the move. 

After morning parade the court-martial met in the Court 
House ; it was composed of officers of all arms and ranks, 
drawn from every corps save the two regiments concerned. 

Lieut-Gen. Boyd was President ; under him sate Colonel 
Godwin of the Artillery ; Lieut.-Col. Cochrane of the 58th Foot ; 
Colonel Green of H.M. Engineers; Major Kellett of the 39 th 
Foot ; Major Fancourt of the 56th Foot ; Major Mackay of 
Lord M’Leod’s regiment (H.M. 73rd) ; Major Busch of Reden’s 
Hanoverian regiment, and Major de Selincourt of De la Motte’s 
Hanoverian regiment ; nine in all, for the gravity of the 
occasion called for a general court-martial. 

The prisoner, no longer drunk, but as fresh as a rose (the 
man had a marvellous constitution and a high spirit), was 
brought into court accompanied by his “ friend ” (a time- 
honoured fiction for a brother officer learned in the law of 
courts-martial). 

Being charged with causing the death of the missing man, 
he repelled the charge with indignation. The President 
recorded a plea of “ Not Guilty.” In the pause which followed 
and whilst the quill was yet scratching, the Friend of the 
accused arose, demanding immediate acquittal upon the 
ground that there was not a tittle of testimony connecting 
the prisoner with the crime. Crime ! he scouted the idea. 
Why crime ? He submitted that there was no proof of the 
death of Colonel Justin. But, supposing that he were dead, 
there was not the shadow of a shade of reason to lay his death 
at the door of the accused. 

He would have continued, but the Court overruled the plea. 
There was evidence. 


346 CRISIS 

Men watching intently for signs saw the prisoner’s eyelid 
flicker. 

Testimony tending to show the existence of previous ill- 
will was admitted. (The ways of courts-martial are very 
wonderful.) The Governor’s orderly deposed to watching a 
scuffle upon a flight of steps between the accused and the 
missing officer. “ There was others present,” added the wit- 
ness, but was stopped by the Court. “ Name no names, my 
man, if you please ! ” Most of the judges knew the story : 
to those who did not it was communicated in whispers behind 
the hands of the initiated. Mrs. Hollinghurst should be kept 
out of this, if possible. The fortnight’s arrest was noted in 
connection with the alleged scuffle, which the prisoner indeed 
did not deny. Scuffle there had been none, but the only 
rebutting evidence would have been that of the women, 
uncertain at all times, dangerous at this ; he had fingered 
his sword-hilt. No, he did not sufficiently believe in his danger 
to lose caste by dragging a woman into the matter, whom 
the Court, gentlemen all, desired to spare. 

Ensign Chisholm of Lord M’Leod’s regiment swore to having 
seen Colonel Justin, whom he knew well, pass the Highlanders’ 
camp on the Monday morning, had followed him with his 
eye, and had seen him cross the ridge as if making for the 
Mediterranean Battery. He was carrying a book. He had 
not seen him return. 

“ That last is not evidence,” remarked the prisoner’s 
Friend. “ Neither did any of the rest of us see him return ; 
but he may very well have returned when we were not 
looking.” 

Chisholm had watched the accused take the same path 
twenty minutes later. He was carrying a parcel beneath 
his arm wrapped in a bandana similar to the one produced. 
Had seen him come down the mountain carrying the same 
parcel, it might have been an hour later. He went up fast, 
he came down slowly, and rested twice. 

Had he noticed anything unusual about the manner or 
appearance of the accused ? He had observed that he was 
holding, or wearing, a white cloth or hankey over his chin. 
(“ I do not possess such an article,” interjected Boyle.) 

Hearing on the previous day (Tuesday) that Colonel Justin 
was being sought for, he, Chisholm, had gone up to the 
ridge to “ spy.” (This use of the word was new to most of 
the Court, but Major Mackay interpreted.) Subsequently 
Chisholm had visited the Mediterranean Battery : had found 
there the book produced ( Connop on Field Fortification, 
bearing the name of the missing man on the fly-leaf). Asked 
if he noticed anything unusual in the battery, he replied that 


MISSING 347 

he had found the soil between the guns disturbed as if by 
a struggle. 

" Pure assumption ! I must protest ! ” interposed the 
Friend. 

Chisholm flashed a glance at the interrupter. “ There wass 
the mair’rks o’ twa disteenct boot-heels; a sma’ ane,’ and 
a lairger.” 

There was a buzz of subdued whispering in Court. Elder 
men remarked the quiet, gawky Scottish lad as a fellow with 
an eye, also with a head, and thought he might go far. 

Anything more ? It appeared that Chisholm was only at 
the beginning of his discoveries. “ ’Twixt the guns, and at 
the fut o’ the pairapet, I fand this, sir.” He handed up a 
button embossed with the crown and regimental number of 
the prisoner’s late regiment, the 41st. “ And against the door 

o’ the casement this ” (a wad of paper, slightly singed). 

The ruddy cheek of the accused perceptibly paled ; the net 
seemed closing around him in most uncomfortable sort. He 
regretted too late the line of defence. There was no cross- 
examination. 

“ Ensign Chisholm,” said the President, “ the Court com- 
mends ye for your prudence. Ye have given your evidence 
creditably.” 

These pieces of testimony were putting a different com- 
plexion upon the case, as any one could see. With this button 
in view the judges sent for the prisoner’s kit, and meanwhile 
adjourned for luncheon. 

Outside the building Chisholm’s arm was touched by his 
friend Travis. “ Chizzy, ye’ve a better head than I for a 
mountain ; can ye put your hand upon a good dependable 
rope ? I, too, have made a discovery.” , 

The Court reassembled. The prisoner’s kit included a 
uniform frock of the 41st regiment wanting one button. The 
button found by Ensign Chisholm matched those upon the 
garment in every respect. 

The wad now came in for scrutiny at the hands of experts. 
It fitted the bore of the prisoner’s pistols. 

“ It would fit fifty pistols, yours, mine, anybody’s ! ” 
interjected the Friend. “ The thing may well have been 
lying where it was found for months, for years.” 

The Major of Lord M’Leod’s Highlanders was unrolling the 
wad, was straightening and patting the paper out. 

“ It canna weel ha’ bin lying there a wik, ma dear sir ; it 
is a nottis o’ some soort ; ha ! this is eevidence ; General, I 
mak’ it o’er toyersel’ : ” he handed to the President a crumpled 
and singed fragment of a play-bill, in German, the cast of 


CRISIS 


348 

certain private theatricals which had beguiled the enforced 
seclusion of the Hardenbergs within the past fortnight. 
Again that soft buzz of irrepressible whispers and the escaping 
of pent breaths filled the court. 

What of the pistols ? One only of the pair was loaded, its 
fellow seemed to have been recently discharged, for the grime 
of powder was discernible in pan and barrel. To have left 
such a weapon uncleaned for more than a day was a dereliction 
to shake the head over ; it called for explanation in itself. 
For the pistols were worth a day’s journey to handle, and 
were passed reverently around the Court from the President 
to the junior Major; and whoever touched them did so with 
the tenderness of an expert in an age when a man’s life and 
honour might depend upon the quality of his personal weapon. 
The barrels bore the mark of Nicholas Biz of Madrid and were 
spirally twisted : the President judged them to be undoubted 
Spanish iron, forged from old mule-shoes. The locks were 
London-made, JoeManton’s latest action, fitted with platinum 
touch-holes and with pans plated with gold to prevent corro- 
sion. No better work was turned out by the Versailles gun- 
smiths, said the President ; the pair, he whispered, was worth 
anything from ^400 to ^500. But neither the blue gloss of the 
barrels, nor the perfect balance, nor the delicately light pull 
aroused such interest as the half-dozen or so of ivory insets, 
studding the dark walnut butts, each with its initials and date, 
grim mementoes of the slain. 

The examination of the weapons consumed not less than 
five minutes ; strictly speaking, there was very little about them 
that was admissible evidence, but the judges were practical 
persons in their profession rather than lawyers, and knew 
that a man does not carry such a parcel as this when out for 
a morning’s walk inside the British lines without reason. 
The marks of recent use, the wad too, pointed in but one 
direction ; but the pistols themselves, and especially the 
ivory insets, weighted the scale against the accused. 

He saw that the thing was going against him. The net 
was tightening; the fish grew uneasy. “ Ye had better leave 
yourself in the hands of your Friend, sir, and reserve your 
defence,” counselled the President in reply to some intemper- 
ate remark. 

££ And that, I think, General, is the case for the Crown,” 
said the officer in charge of what we may call the prosecution. 

The prisoner’s Friend sorted his notes, cleared his throat 
and was rising, when a commotion at the door of the Court 
House made him turn his heard. The day was hot. The 
place was crowded to suffocation, but persons outside were 
urgently demanding admission and would take no denial. 


MISSING 


349 

" Aw’m a wutness, I tell ye : tak’ ma name till the Pree-sident 
o’ this Coort, o’ twull be the waur for ye ! ” 

‘‘If that be Ensign Chisholm, admit him,” sounded the 
voice of authority, and two youngsters, Chisholm of the 73rd, 
and Travis of the 12th, were passed with difficulty to the table. 
The uniforms of both were in disorder; they were heated, 
and weighted with the gravity of the evidence they had 
come in haste to offer. A wide-crowned, peaked cap, such 
as was worn at the time by officers in undress, was placed in 
the hands of the President ; it was pierced with two bullet- 
holes. Eyes rounded, the packed room held breath to hear 
the better. 

“ From a bush below the Mediterranean Battery ? ” echoed 
the President incredulously. 

■‘ Fafty-seven fit, General ; wull it please ye to mee-sure 
the tow ? ” 

“ But ’tis admittedly inaccessible. How got ye there ? ” 

“ I let him down on a rope, General ; belayed it around the 
chase of a gun,” corroborated Lieutenant Travis, rising with 
hand to brow. 

“ Swear that gentleman too,” said the President. “ This 
grows serious indeed.” 

“ His name is on the lining,” observed an officer to whom 
the cap had been handed. 

“ This rammer will just pass the holes,” remarked another. 

“ Are there any marks of blood or brains ? ” asked the 
Friend, rising after a hurried colloquy with his client. 

There were neither ; but the point was ignored, the evidence 
being sufficiently conclusive as it stood. 

The defence was a fiasco. The prisoner’s Friend was visibly 
disconcerted. In the face of the evidence it was needful to 
change front somewhat, to admit that his man had visited 
the battery (had not merely gone to the top “ for the view ” 
as previously suggested). That he had gone armed was also 
admitted, “ to practise at a mark,” the Court was assured. 
That the men had met within the narrow limits of that lonely 
work was conceded, and that the cap of the missing man had 
been pierced by a bullet from the pistol of the accused. 

“ But,” cried the prisoner, putting his Friend aside, and 
addressing the Court with passionate energy, ■ ‘ I assure ye, 
gentlemen all, ’twas the mee-rust accident, the slipping of a 
hair-trigger, no more, and sorra wan morsel of har’rm done. 
I lift the Meejor in perfuct health, and indade, I have no reason 
at all to suppose him in worse at this moment. And this I 
swear upon the true faith of a Christian.” 

They heard him out to the last word that he could urge, 
heard him with the grim patience of judges whose minds are 


CRISIS 


350 

made up. How ill did this belated candour accord with his 
counsel’s opening statement ! 

The removal of the prisoner in custody and the clearing of 
the court were matters of form. In less than fifteen minutes 
the room was filled again. All eyes were riveted upon the 
table whereon lay the sword of the accused, no longer placed 
athwart the green cloth in a position of non-committal, but 
with its hilt now to the seat of the President and its point 
directed to the dock. 

“ Prisoner,” said General Boyd, in the short, choppy tones 
of a man doing in public a thing which he is unused to do, 
and which he hates, “ Prisoner — Cornelius Boyle — this Court 
finds you guilty of the wilful and premeditated murder of 
Lieutenant-Colonel Wade Justin. The sentence is death. 
You will be taken ” 

“ But the man is aloive ! ” shouted the condemned man, 
leaping to his feet with a strident laugh. 

“ Silence, sir. We have taken into consideration the fact 
that the body of your unfortunate victim has not been found. 
We are going to extend to you a most unusual consideration. 
The execution of the sentence will be postponed for one week, 
dating from the hour at which the deceased was last seen alive. 
If he can be produced in good health before Monday next at 
nine in the forenoon this affair will assume another complexion. 
Remove the prisoner.” 

“ Gintlemen, I thank ye ! I’m not a did man yet ; nor is 
Justin,” said the condemned man, saluting, and turned left- 
half-face to precede his guard. 

“A brave fellow, but a bad man,” growled the President, 
a sentiment in which every member of the Court concurred. 

So Wednesday’s sun sloped towards the west ; cool blue 
shadows gathered upon the aching yellow stone of the Eastern 
Face, broadening, blackening ; then night fell. There would 
be four more days. 

Thursday broke cool and dewy with a thin haze over the 
Straits. Men foretold a broiling day later on, but the weather 
suddenly grew thick and some rain fell, a Levanter with heavy 
wet whilst it lasted, or this story had never been written. 

Under cover of the downfall a Catalan Bay craft attempted 
to get round with a load of fresh-caught fish, was overhauled 
by the same Spanish galley, and carried a prize to Algebras 
under the eyes of a British squadron careening to clean ship. 

Boyle in his condemned cell read a novel and yawned. The 
thing was too damnably absurd. Appeal to the Governor ? 
Not he ! He had a crow to pick with Sir George already, 
and would not for the world spoil sport. This should be the 
talk of London yet, and the laugh was going to be his. Justin 




MISSING 


35i 


would be found before the day was out. M Mark me, sir ! the 
fellow will come home to-day, alive and mad ! ’Tis the frenzy 
of a runaway lunatic ; a touch of sun ; no more.” 

His mess sent him presents of wine and made dishes ; his 
visitors reported him in the highest of spirits. Some shook 
their heads ; ’twas plain that the man did not dare to face 
the position. 

It was remembered afterwards that the sergeant on duty at 
the Signal Station had been diverted this day by the antics of 
a party of monkeys, which, after much reconnoitring and 
chattering upon the rugged cliff beneath the Mediterranean 
Battery, trooped away in a body from that part of their haunt. 

Thursday night set in early with a drizzle of fine rain falling. 
There was no news of lost Colonel Justin. 


CHAPTER X 

SUSPENSE 

Long before sunrise on the Thursday Mrs. Lamb’s woman 
Painter was up and dusting her mistress’s little morning room. 
Before sunrise, I have said ; for it would be hours before the 
sun, already white and softly warm upon the Eastern Face, 
would climb the mountain and peep down into dark, narrow 
Prince Frederic Street and the patio of the little Spanish 
house. 

It was still dusk in the small back room. Mrs. Lamb, a 
thrifty housewife, used up her candle-ends personally ; Painter, 
her maid-of-all-work (the term “ general ” is modern, and 
would have involved misunderstanding in a garrison town) — 
Painter, I say, retired and rose in the dark and did early 
chores such as these by sense of touch. She was working her 
way along the mantelshelf, grumbling softly to herself, her 
back to the door which she did not see opening slowly. 

Good-morning to ye, Mrs. Painter.” 

The woman started as if she had heard a spirit ; there stood 
her mistress’s elder guest, red-eyed and pathetically weary 
after a sleepless night, but dressed for walking. 

“ Y-yes, ’m ! Lord, how ye made me jump ! ” panted 
Painter. 

“ I am sorry to have startled ye, Painter ; I wanted — I 
wondered if ye could do a little thing for me. Your mistress 
is still sleeping ? ” 

“ Bless ye, yes, ma’am. She do sleep like a top. Hear 
her ! ” 

Thus directed, the ears of Mrs. Hollinghurst recognised 
soft rhythmical nasal vibrations purring down through the 
boards overhead. 

Will Mrs. Lamb be needing ye for half an hour, d’ye 
think ? ” , t 

i£ Lor’ bless ye, no, ma’am. She’ll not turn upon her side 

352 


SUSPENSE 


353 

until I takes her in her cup o’ tay and draws the shutter-bolt. 
’Tis a gift she’ve got, a perfect gift ! What can I do for ye, 
ma’am ? ” 

“ I — I have eaten but poorly these last two days, Painter.” 
“ Y’ave indeed, ma’am ; ye have picked no more than a 
cage-bird. Is there any little one thing ye could fancy ? ” 

“ I was thinking of fish, Painter ; I confess I am partial to 
fish. If ” 

“ Ah, there ye beat me, ma’am. Our regular man, Celestin, 
has not called for days, and doubtless ye know why ? ” 

It appeared that Mrs. Hollinghurst knew all about the 
Spanish galley and the stoppage of the supplies of wrasse and 
rock cod. 

“ But I fancied, Painter, that if we got early to the market 

there was just a chance ” 

“ So there be, ma’am, and I’ll run along myself. No need 
for ye to set foot out of door at this time o’ the morning.” 

But this was no part of Mrs. Hollinghurst ’s plan, and the 
serving- woman presently found herself escorting her mistress’s 
guest through the empty streets towards the Water Port, 
a large and tolerant pity in her wondering bosom. 

The two had not reached the first corner when they caught 
the patter of swift, light feet behind them, and Sue was of 
their party. “ I overheard — I guessed — I know ! You will 
let me join you, Julia dear ? ” 

Celestin Mistral had been born a subject of The Most 
Catholic King, but his native language was not Spanish, nor 
was he a Spaniard. Prove^al was the speech he had learned 
at his mother’s knee ; he was a slighter, more wiry, finer type 
than the Iberian, for he was a Catalan, the best boatman of 
the little colony of his countrymen on the Eastern Face of 
Gibraltar. 

Seeing the women approach he removed the cigar he was 
smoking, doffed his red woollen beret and arose, asking their 
pleasure in passable English. 

“ Have ye no fish ? ” began the maid, but the man swept 
his hands expressively in the direction of his empty stall and 
shrugged lean square shoulders. No need for words. 

i‘ I know — I know,” broke in the elder lady, coming 
forward (she had been standing half behind her companion, 
her hood about her cheeks ; now she parted its folds with both 
hands and looked the bronzed fisherman full in the face as 
though she would assure herself of his capacity before opening 
her business). “ It is not a question of fish to-day, my man. 
Where is your boat ? ” 

Moored at the Water Port, ma-dam : but ” 

*■ But I want you to put to sea for me ” 


23 


CRISIS 


354 

“ A hard matter, ma-dam, for there is no wind.” 

“ You can row ? ” 

“ So can those others, ma-dam, eight on a side, sweeps, 
and a swivel-gun forward. Ma-dam will understand that I 
do not desire to die in the chain-gang at Algebras. And for 
why, ma-dam, if it is not a question of fish ? ” 

“ Man, have you not heard of this murder ? of the King’s 
officer who was killed on Monday and thrown over the cliff 
(so they say), at the little battery at the top of the Rock at 
the other end ? ” The lady’s voice had a sweet tremor in it — 
she was fighting an impulse to break down ; the man, a gentle- 
man, straightened himself, stood to attention in the presence 
of grief, and passion, and beauty, dropped the cigar with which 
he had been comforting an empty stomach, and waited. 

“The — the body has not been found, my man. He, 
Colonel Justin, was a friend of mine. I want — I should like 
— I do not yet believe — but, if you could recover the body I 
would reward you. Yes, I know all about this guar da costa , 
but a sailor must always run his risks ; is not that so ? And 
they say you are the best boatman on the Rock. Is not 
that so, too ? Well, I will give you twenty dollars now, just 
to show you that I am in earnest, and two hundred more when 
you bring in the body ” — a sob. “ But I do not believe that 
my friend is dead ” — her voice broke into a pitiful whimper — 
“ a thousand for him alive ! ” She covered her face and wept 
softly within her hood, her body shaking with the weakness 
of grief and fasting. The woman beside her watched for a 
fall. Sue flung an arm about her, but there was to be no 
fainting to-day ; she was too desperately set upon her quest, 
and this sailorman had not yet replied. 

He hesitated, shrugging those lean shoulders again, weighing 
the bag of dollars tentatively in his hand, for he had by no 
means determined to accept them. The risk was real and 
great, far greater than the ladies realised. Mistral knew what 
sort of mercy a Catalan prisoner of war might expect from his 
Spanish captors, and shrunk from the prospect of being 
penned at night in a stifling barracoon and beaten all day in 
the trenches, chained to his spade between Jews, Moors, and 
the worst characters of the camp. And for twenty dollars ! 
As for the larger sums mentioned, he hardly took them into 
consideration : the recovery of the body was an off-chance ; 
whilst to bring again a living man after all these days, a man 
who had been shot and flung over a cliff, too — such would be 
a miracle. All things are possible to the good God, but He 
does not see fit in these last days to work the miracle, not even 
for true Christians ; and these, with all their bounty, were 
heretics. No, 







SUSPENSE 


355 

When , a man has reached this point twenty dollars are 
neither here nor there. Celestin Mistral, empty stomach and 
all, would play for safety, and, bowing sedately and low, 
returned the money. “ There was no wind, nor sign of wind. 
His boat was heavy ; he must have a second hand in her, and 
he knew of none who would join in such an adventure. No.” 

Very sadly and reluctantly the money was retaken, and 
the women went. Sue lingered, turning upon the man her 
sad, imploring, magnificent eyes. “ Man, if there should be a 
wind ” — she loosened a golden brooch from her throat, the 
most valuable jewel which she possessed ; she had snatched 
it, the first thing that came to her hand, when she found the 
others were leaving the house without her — “ Man, if a wind 
should spring up, will you try ? Oh, will ye just try ? He, 
the dear Colonel, is alive, we know it, we feel it here ” : her 
little hand pressed her heart, her loosened dress fell open, 
the brown southerner had a momentary glimpse of a throat 
and bosom of a wonderful whiteness, the glory of womanhood. 
His eyes snapped, he fell upon one knee, and catching the 
hand that held the brooch, kissed it as he would have kissed 
some authentic relic. 

“ Ma-dam, by the grace of God I will bring the gen-tel-man 
to you alive .’ 1 He shook a lean, impressive forefinger at her 
in token of his conviction. 

The jewel shone in the brown paw he extended. The lady 
turned to go. “ Bless you ! Oh, God bless you ! ” 

But Thursday warmed to fiery noon, and cooled slowly off 
as the sun weakened. And the calm held ; the vanes boxed 
the compass, sails in harbour hung slack from motionless 
yards. Celestin bethought him of the promised dollars ; 
none knew the set of the currents around Europa Point so 
well as he, or where a body that had plunged deep and 
risen slowly might be found after five days’ drifting, but he 
bethought him likewise of that armed galley, and waited 
for a wind. 

Friday passed slowly in the little Spanish house in Prince 
Frederic Street. Mrs. Hollinghurst forced herself to labour 
at her friend’s dress, but her heart was no longer in it, she 
was often slipping off to her room ; the others could hear 
the murmur of praying lips ; Painter made cup after cup of 
tea for the poor creature. 

“ Oh, my dears, it maddens me. How can a body’s heart 
bear it ? No, don’t speak to me, Susan ! I’ll not be spoken 
to, nor looked at. Ye’ve no heart — girls have none. How 
should they ? Ye don’t know how I feel.” She flung herself 
upon the settle, and gave way to a storm of weeping. 

Susan set her work down, gathered the weeping woman 


356 CRISIS 

into her arms and buried her own face in her friend’s hair. 
Their hot tears mingled. 

“ What are ye whispering ? — Hope ? There’s none. Mur- 
dered men don’t come back. Your young Chisholm — and 
what has he to say ? Oh, he has writ ye, has he ? Well, ye 
may as well read his rubbish, ’twill pass the time. 

Sue read : 

“ * Written from the King's Bastion, where we 
are quartered, July 31, 1779. 

“ * TO MRS. TIGHE, AT MRS. LAMB’S, PRINCE FREDERIC ST. 

“ ' Honoured Madam, 

“ I am persuaded ye will pardon these. I have just 
ane brief Word of Consolation for ye touching our absent 
Friend. You may recall that I saw baith the two Gentlemen, 
Colonel Justin and the Other, pass me on their way up to the 
Battery, and that I beheld the Other (aforesaid) return by 
his lane. As I deponed to the Court in my Eevidens, I de- 
stinckly saw the Other on baith Journeys holding (or wearing) 
a white Mouchoir to his Mouth. And this is my perfect 
Belief, though rebutted in Court. This Rebutment gave me 
to think a wee, and looking later upon the Other whilst the 
Colonel President was delivering Sentence, I saw that the 
White Thing was then upon his Face, but that it covered the 
Neb, of him and indeed all save the Eyes. Then whilst I 
looked it was gane. Now, Madam, I was never held to have 
the Second Sight by any of my ain People, but it is most 
plain to me that I haf it now, and that the Other is a Dead 
Man. But, as ye will see, per contra, our absent Friend can 
be neither dead nor dying, for his Face was most particularly 
free when last obsairved by 

“ ‘ Your most humble, most devotit, and most obedt. Servant, 

“‘John Chisholm, 

* ‘ Ensign in the 7 yd regiment [Lord M'Leod's ).' 

“ Now, what think ye of that, my dear Mrs. Hollinghurst ? ” 

“ La, child ! if the poor Colonel be not dead, in what danger 
is the other ? ’Tis just the rigmarole of a superstitious High- 
land savage.” 

“ And that it is not, and he is not ! ” flashed Susan, springing 
away from her peevish friend and shaking her skirts briskly, 
as though vexed with them for their contact with so unreason- 
able a person. 

“ Children, do have done,” cried Mrs. Lamb, smiling 
tolerantly upon both. 


SUSPENSE 


357 

“ And to think of our meek little Susan sparking up in 
defence of a strange young man ! ” For Sue had fled. The 
ladies looked archly upon one another, the sorrowing Holling- 
hurst through tears which she forgot for a moment. “ Why, 
Julia, she set at ye like a gamecock ! What is this ? Pray 
God, this Scots lad be a good heart ! He seems it ; and the 
Colonel — I mean Mr. Travis — is fond of him.” 

The door reopened. Sue slipped shyly in and dropped upon 
her knees beside the widow. “ Mrs. Hollinghurst, Julia, dear, 
forgive me ! I did wrong to fly out at ye, and you so good 
to poor me. God knows ye’ve enough to bear without my 
tempers.” 

Night came at last, a night of thick, soft, heated darkness, 
for the moon was at the full, and consequently upon the other 
side of the Rock until midnight or so. By three in the morn- 
ing (the Saturday morning) it shone against the half-closed 
shutter of Mrs. Lamb’s chamber, a broad plank of silver lay 
across the floor. 

The good lady slept the sleep of a just woman ; her slumber 
was at its deepest. Something moved outside the door, the 
latch clicked and rose, somebody was within the room, but 
the sleeper stirred not : the intruder crept closer, closer, to 
the dark margin of that shining plank. The sleeper sat up, 
still asleep. “ Who is it ? ” she asked thickly, automatically, 
with closed eyes, and would have lain down again ; but with a 
rush something was upon her. Her heart stopped, she drew 
breath for the shriek, but found that the creature was a warm, 
live, tender-breasted woman. Julia was weeping in her arms. 

“ Oh, dear Mrs. Lamb ! Oh, I can bear it no longer. He 
is not dead, I am sure of it ! ” 

“ So am I, my dear ; why should he be dead, indeed ? ** 

“ No, don’t put me off with your fibs, you kind heart ; I 
am not a child. You think he was killed by that wretch ; so 
did I until a minute ago. Oh, I have passed a night ! Some- 
times I could have watched that man tortured ; oh, I am a 
cruel thing, my dear — a wicked, cruel thing ! Then, again 
for an hour or two I could forgive him, actually forgive as I 
hope to be forgiven. But it didn’t hold, I slipped back — 
back. And, just now, I think I dropped off ; instantly I 
heard my dear speaking, no, not calling, — speaking slowly, 
quietly, with a drag in his voice as a sick man speaks who is 
dead weary. I was a long way off, you understand, but I 
pressed through things to reach him, and the voice grew plainer 
and nearer. ‘ I will not ,’ he was saying, ‘ I — will — not ! * and 
again, ‘ For her sake,' 1 For her sake ,’ over and over again. 
Now, you who are older, what make ye of that ? Is he not 
struggling to live ? And for me ? ” 


358 CRISIS 

And Sunday drew on, drew to a close, and no news of lost 
Colonel Justin. 

The condemned man had finished his novel. He did not 
ask for another. The chaplain had called upon him again, 
had offered his services, had met with a civil refusal. The 
man showed astonishing nerve, stuck to his story ; blamed, 
but forgave his legal friend for the tactical error of his defence ; 
pardoned his judges ; professed himself sure of the Governor’s 
respite, repeating hardily, if with weakening conviction, his 
constant formula, “ The fellow is as aloive as mesilf, I tell 
ye ! ” 

On Sunday after sunset gun, his face fell. All day he 
had been reviewing his past life, a thing he had never done 
before ; he had refought his battles and thoroughly enjoyed 
the flavour of bygone cakes and ale, and all the ginger that 
had been hot i’ the mouth. But just as that sunset gun 
boomed a recurring flash of memory had shown him a dim, 
low-ceiled city room, a smirking woman, a shuffling priest 
and himself, around an innocent, affrighted girl, faced by a 
four-square frocked sailor-man who with lifted hand was 
saying: “This is the word of the Lord unto thee — as thee 
treats this here young woman, so shall He treat thee in thy 
hour of need.” He had jeered at the warning then ; he had 
never thought of it since ; now it cast up at him, and his face 
fell. 

But one more night upon earth was left to him. He sum- 
moned his jailor. 

“ Me frind, I am of the ould faith. Can ye get me a priest ? ” 

The thing was irregular, but was winked at ; it had been 
done before, for there were many Irishmen as well as a corps 
of Corsicans in the garrison. 

Mr. Barrington, the music-master of George Augustus Street, 
late (’twas whispered) of Douai, was fetched. 

“ ’Tis a black story this, me son. Have ye anny more of 
the sor’rt ? Be kaping nothing back, I adjure ye ! ” 

“ ’Tis about all, Father. No, I have nothing ilse upon me 
mind, onless, indade, ’tis a thrifling matter of a wife that I 
have in Prince Frederic Street.” 

The confessor’s forehead wrinkled ; he would have something 
to say presently, but the facts first. 

Out it all came, another evil tale, and the last of many. 
The listener’s steady eye was fixed upon the narrator. At 
the story of the repudiation before the Governor the priest’s 
mouth hardened, “ ’Tis the jooce of a time ye’ll be having in 
purgatory for this, ye blay-gyar’rd ! H’whell ! Did I iver 
hear such a confission in me loife ? I doubt ut. Upon me 
sowl, ye are unfit to live, and that the Lord has plainly dis- 


SUSPENSE 


359 


covered. ’Tis my hooly belief that He is taking ye out of 
further mischuf. But as ye are sure that ye did not kill 
the Colonel (ye ar’re sure ?). H’well thin, we’ll see what can 
be done for yez.” 

Later it was reported that the prisoner had made a clean 
breast of it. His mess denied it. He had slept well. 


CHAPTER XI 


BENEATH THE CLIFFS 

Slowly passed that Sunday night. Mrs. Lamb subsequently 
declared that she never closed an eye, a matter upon which 
we are not called upon to express an opinion, nor to record 
Painter’s. Mrs. Hollinghurst, worn out with a week of horrid 
anxiety, slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of exhaustion. Yet 
some sentinel sense was awake within her, for in the gray 
dawn the jar and lapse of a louvred shutter aroused her with 
a start. “Wind ? Yes, the first for days ; but, 'tis too late 
now ; and if it were not, that fisherman has no mate, and is 
too weak-spirited.” She fell a- weeping and was presently 
asleep again — the utter, collapsed, sodden sleep which saves 
the brain. 

Yes, in the little Spanish house in Prince Frederic Street 
was the grief of a breaking heart. Hope was dead at last. 
No one comes back after a week. Her night assurance had 
vanished with the setting of the moon. Sue had feared for 
her reason, but again, and yet again, came the rush of tears 
that brought ease and reprieved her wits. 

And the shutter rattled at intervals, for the wind breathed 
on ; a bay-tree in the patio rustled its leathern leaves, whis- 
pering News ! news ! the tiresome stupid thing, when there 
was no news, nor ever would be again. 

Painter brought “tay” to her mistresses' bedsides and 
mentioned that Mrs. Tighe had gone for a walk, and desired 
them not to wait breakfast for her. 

The morning sun shone upon a dancing sea and baby waves ; 
a light north wind was brushing the dead blue water of the 
harbour into life : seen from the rock above, the fingers of 
the breeze played over the face of the bay, now here, now 
there, swift, capricious, invisible, but, with instant and ex- 
quisite effects, the satin surface changed to moire antique and 

360 


BENEATH THE CLIFFS 361 

lute-string ; all the hues of a peacock's tail were there for a 
moment and were gone, replaced by shards of plasma and 
emerald, sapphire, amethyst, and pale turkis. 

The breeze had awaked at dawn and still held. A single 
boat had dropped down to Europa Point, had rounded, and, 
keeping well under the cliffs, had lowered sail and was working 
along inshore below the great sheer precipice beneath Sugarloaf 
Hill (Pan de Azucar, the Scorpions call it). 

There were two people in the boat ; a lean, brown-faced 
man at the oars, and a smaller figure in the stern-sheets, 
cloaked and hooded, our Sue, no other, who, at the first whisper 
of the coming wind, had leapt from her bed and sought 
the Catalan fisherman at the Water Port. She had found 
him leaner and hungrier than ever. No one would buy the 
brooch: the Jews were gone, and to an Englishman a jewel 
in such hands was a matter of suspicion. Hence she found 
her man open to reason : such reasons as she had brought with 
her. Of the three hundred pounds which Furley, on behalf 
of Friend Hippisley, had left in Sue’s hands, the girl had placed 
all but fifty with her guardian for safety. It was this balance 
which she offered Mistral for his services. 

“But, my lady, I shall need another hand, and 
where ? ’* 

“ Here ! — take me. I will go with you. I can steer ; oh, I 
have steered a boat before, I have steered a brig. Come, 
let us be going whilst the wind lasts.” 

Her energy swept away his scruples. Fifty pounds was 
a very large sum to a man in his position in those days, and, 
apart from the off-chance of adding to it by the recovery of 
the floating corpse, fish was making fancy prices ; if he should 
chance upon the luck of Saint Peter he could place every 
fin of it. So, having reached the best ground, he pulled out 
two hundred yards and let down his lines, keeping an eye to 
the southward the while for that guavda costa. Sue sat rest- 
less and vaguely disappointed. Some exterior impulse, or 
native instinct, had driven her to this place of horror ; she 
had pressed through difficulties to reach it, she had reached 
it, and having arrived, there was nothing for her to do. Un- 
like her brother, unlike Chisholm, unlike her friends and 
house-mates, the girl still silently bore a hope in her bosom, 
a foolish, unreasonable belief that the Colonel would return 
to them. It was not a thing to argue about, nor to talk 
over, so she had said very little ; but there it was, this 
conviction within her ; and here was she, drawn by this absurd 
but imperious call to the spot where, if dead, the body of her 
friend should be, although she would not allow her mind to 
dwell upon the possibility of his death. 


CRISIS 


362 

That Mistral should fish instead of watching vexed her, 
yet she knew that whatever came must come to them, nor 
would exertion upon their parts aid. 

She schooled herself to patience, glancing at times at the 
vast yellow rock above them, “ washed with the morning’s 
water-gold,” each cranny and ledge defined with marvellous 
clearness. 

Celestin sniffed. Fish were upon the move, as he knew, 
albeit he had had no bite as yet. A wide- winged osprey, 
all liver-and- white like a pointer, was circling low ; flap, flap. 
Ah ! it had turned head under, had fallen plumb : the water 
rose in a white fountain ; presently it was upon the surface 
again, flapping strongly, the wet flying from its quills, rising 
heavily, its prey kicking hard, a dazzle of silvery flank and 
swishing tail, a clean bass. Mistral sniffed again, smelling 
fish, and watched his lines jealously. It was Sue who followed 
the flight of the bird, its laboured start, its circling to gain the 
uplift of the wind ; she saw it climb the heights towards its 
eyrie upon the cliff, and lo ! as she watched, her eyes widened ; 
that sad, anxious look, which the flight of the fisher-eagle 
had for a moment beguiled and softened, fled, her lips fell 
apart, her brows drew together, the forehead furrowed above 
them, every sense waiting upon and lending its forces to the 
eye. There, upon a ledge high aloft, so distant, so remote 
that all sense of proportion was defeated, stood, defined against 
the pallor of the sun-washed stone, the figure of a man. But 
it was surely an optical delusion, or a sea-mark, for it was too 
tiny for a human figure, or indeed for a child ; and yet, in that 
magically clear morning light, its proportions and members 
were distinctly human. It was dressed as a soldier, but was 
bareheaded, it stood bolt upright as a soldier stands upon 
parade. Oh, absurd ; it must be a doll, a mannikin. But how 
got it there ? It had no visible foothold, no smallest means 
of support ; it seemed adhering to the naked cliff-face as a 
pictured figure adheres to its canvas. 

And then, “It is alive, its hands are moving J Oh,” she 
gulped low and hoarsely and got to her feet, and ere Celestin 
could turn his head, a glorious scream of pure joy cleft the 
sea-silence like the cry of a fife. 'Twas nature’s charging 
note, her battle-cry from the lips of a girl, her summons to 
extreme and utmost exertion. The startled man crouched low, 
swept the rock-face vaguely, followed her outstretched finger, 
and spied from under his hand. 

" It is a spirit, madam ; alas that we should have seen it ! 
It will bring us ill-luck ! A man ? the Colonel ? He is in 
heaven a week since ; and no human foot has ever reached 
where that is standing.” 


BENEATH THE CLIFFS 


363 

" But, it is he — he — he ! I can see him. I know him ! 
Look, he is waving to us ! ” 

It was the faintest of signals, but it served. The girl threw 
up her rounded chin and, filling her fine chest with sea-wind, 
sent her hail soaring up the cliff : 

“ We — will — save — you. — Hold on — still ! ” 

Again, and yet again she shrilled, her column of white 
throat pulsing with its upper note. The tiny hand so far 
aloft there wagged its weak countersign. The girl turned to 
her companion. “ Pull to the shore, man, pull ! ” 

But the Catalan, crouched upon his thwart, sat hunched, 
biting his fingers, pallid and mute, his eyes to seaward, and 
when he opened his lips it was to curse softly and brokenly 
in his mother-tongue. Alas ! a woeful man was Mistral, for 
there, to the nor’-eastward that black guarda costa was leaping 
through the water towards them, the blue sparkling wavelets 
boiling beneath twinkling oar-blades. 

“ I am lost — lost ! Oh, why did the lady tempt me ? ” 
He wept aloud, hiding his face in his hands. But the girl 
sprang upon him, snatching at his wrists, shaking him by the 
shoulders. 

“ Wretch ! — Coward ! — Miserable ! — Lache ! — Poltron ! ” 
Sue, who had never known that she had a temper, was letting 
herself go in two languages. “ Beast ! — be a man — a man / 

. . . Row for the shore, and we will climb, run, anything ! — ■ 
row l Do ye think that the good God who has kept that 
poor soul alive for a week up there will fail him now ? Give 
me the oars ! ” 

Her edged words, her blazing eyes, the breath poured hot 
upon him from her panting bosom, stung the man to action, 
as the yell of his rider calls upon a failing horse to extend 
himself in a final effort. Mistral laid himself out to row ; the 
boat sprang under him. 

There was no landing-place within hundreds of yards, and 
it was to cut them off from reaching any that the galley was 
speeding. Both craft were converging upon the same point : 
the fishing-boat had the better start, but the galley travelled 
the faster, and had other resources. Sue, watching the knit 
brows and clenched jaw of her rower, beheld the light of a 
new terror distend his eye, and its imminence tighten the 
cordage of his brown throat. She turned in her seat. The 
galley, not a furlong distant, and cleaving the blue water with 
a terrible silent swiftness, was about to do something. Three 
men were moving upon her forecastle around an object which 
shone and shifted. Two crouched, one bent, there was the 
gleam of burnished brass, and then a ball of snow-white wool 
leapt, and within it was a spark of fire. Simultaneously, 


CRISIS 


364 

something like a big bird flying with incredible velocity 
struck the water upon their starboard quarter and passed 
close astern. The shock of sound followed and Sue realised 
the awful fact of War. 

A soldier’s daughter, a soldier’s sister, and herself at this 
moment upon her way to save a soldier’s life, the heart within 
her arose and laughed with a touch of the grim, fierce gaudium 
certaminis of her race. She could have sung, shouted, danced. 
To die on such a glorious morning ? Absurd ! And with God’s 
warrant in their hands, His messengers ! Ridiculous ! 

“ They have missed us, man ; do not falter — row, 
row, row ! ” 

Mistral groaned, but held on. He altered his course so as 
to lessen the mark which he displayed to the gunner. 

“ You shall not be hurt,” cried Sue. “ See, I cover you ! ” 
She arose and stood screening the straining oarsman behind 
her flowing skirts, and faced the gunners (still nearer now 
and reloading with nimble haste), shaking out her white 
neckerchief in gallant defiance. 

The sea-washed cliffs are past, the first of the beach is near, 
those sands which thin out to the south of Catalan Bay under 
the East Face, a landing-place protected only by a block- 
house, since the experiences of many sieges has taught our 
enemies that nought is to be gained by occupying a strip of 
beach overlooked by impregnable cliffs. The boat’s keel 
grates, they are in, but — here it comes again ! The gun-servers 
crouch, the captain of the piece bends over the breech of his 
swivel. The girl swings her hand aloft with a clear laugh 
of mockery : she must, she will succeed . Celestin springs from 
his seat and drags her down upon him. Boom ! — crack / 
the ball knocks the rudder-head to splinters, clears their 
prostrate forms by a hand’s breadth, and ploughs its way up 
the beach. 

“ Up, lady — run for your life.” He leaps overside, catches, 
carries, sets her down dryshod, and, gripping her hand, speeds 
breathlessly towards the distant block-house. A sentry paces 
there with futile regularity. Stupid creature, can he do no 
more ? And the block-house stands white and mute ! Bang ! 
— a masked battery quite near has opened. It has only a 
couple of pieces, placed there but a day since at the prayer 
of the fishermen. The galley sheers off. Bang ! again, and 
something has happened, for men cheer, and a boat is run 
down the beach, but Celestin and Sue race on without turning 
their heads. 

A match against time is theirs, and the stake no longer 
their own lives, but the life of the dying man upon the cliff 
behind them. Celestin, that lean and sinewy man, is no mean 


BENEATH THE CLIFFS 365 

runner. Sue lifts her skirts and flies light-footed as a fawn 
along the hardened sand of the sea-marge. Mistral is recog- 
nised, a breathless reply to a friendly challenge passes them 
on toward the North Front. He strides beside and ahead of 
her, her hand in his. 

“ Man, what — did — I tell — you ? — God ” 

“ Keep your breath, lady. Ah yes, I know. Let them 
call you heretic who will, these eyes saw your hands turn the 

balls ! What more could a saint from heaven ? ” He 

crosses himself whilst running. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD 

Monday morning. The condemned man sate in his cell with 
his empty hands upon his knees and his eyes upon the wall. 
The stout cable of hope by which he had hung over Tophet 
for a week past had been giving strand by strand ; it was worn 
to its last thread. 

That strayed lunatic, his enemy, had not been traced. 
The fellow had disappeared ; in what manner, or for what 
reason, other than loss of reason, he, Boyle, confessed himself 
unable to offer any plausible suggestion. “ He is gone, damn 
him ; and I am to die for it ! ’Tis hardish cheese, ye’ll allow, 
sir ! ” he had said to his latest visitor, the officer to whose 
keeping he had been committed. The man had looked in 
after his prisoner had taken his breakfast to ask if there was 
anything that he could do for him. 

This had been the ostensible excuse for the call ; its un- 
expressed reason, understood by both, had been to afford 
opportunity for confession. There had been no confession. 
The officer had lingered, had sate in silence, but his prisoner, 
whilst entirely appreciating the attention, had nothing to 
communicate. 

“ Major Boyle,” said the man at length, rising to leave, 

I am bidden inform ye that the memorial put forward by 
your mess beseeching the Governor’s clemency has failed.” 

“ The deuce it has ! What said his Excellency ? ” asked 
the condemned man, achieving nonchalance with an effort. 
This was the last filament ; it too had parted. 

“ Sir, as ye bid me, I’ll tell ye his exact words. They were 
these: ■ Gentlemen, I have heard of your black bean.’ ” 

Boyle snapped his fingers. 

The bravado rang false as a cracked dollar. His visitor, 
an Englishman and a person of small stature, regarded his 
man with veiled anxiety. This giant Irishman was a foreigner 
and incalculable. How would such a person behave ? For 
the credit of the army he hoped there might be no loss of 

366 


THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD 367 

nerve. “ Would Mr. Boyle please to call for a tankard of 
j old ale — of stingo ? ” 

The Major would not, but would be pleased to take wine 
with him. 

“ The wine shall be brought to you, sir ; for myself, I 
seldom drink so early,” said the officer, and left, excusing 
himself upon the score of duty. 

The bolts grated. Boyle, drawing hot breaths through 
: distended nostrils, glared at the closed door. Tear-an-ages ! 

! This Saxon pock-pudding had declined to touch glasses with 
him. The fellow actually professed to believe him guilty. 
He sprang to his feet and paced the cell passionately, four 
strides and a right-about, cursing ; but soon reseated himself 
with a short yelp of joyless laughter, and fell a-musing. The 
hand that lay upon his enormous thigh contracted. The huge 
muscle was still seasoned and firm. 

And to think that wan hour from now ’twill be meat — 
could meat ! and I mesilf under the moulds, the sands of the 
North Front, mebbe ; and that’s strange, Con Boyle, when 
ye come to think of ut — mighty strange l ” 

• ‘ Major Boyle, the guard ! ” 

It had come to this, then. After all, he had had no such 
bad time of it, considering everything. He was not going to 
i whimper. He had lived his life, had kissed and fought ; had 
s sent six fellows this road with his own hand, and had watched 
a score or so travel it at one time or another. 

The atrocious injustice of his own particular case made 
I his eye flash and hardened his mouth : but, “ Stiddy, me son ! 

ye have the honour of the Ould Country to uphold, and ’twill 
; soon be over. This mar’rch to the ground will be a cursud 
nuisance, but ye will carry yersilf like a gintleman. Ye have 
been to yer juty and made yer sowl (a bit late in the day, 
mebbe, but his riv’rence assures ye ’twill be all right). And, 
for the rist, the firing party will point high and give ye as 
little throuble as may be. Eyes front ! ” 

Never had the condemned man borne himself more soldierly 
than upon this his last march. The whole garrison was under 
' arms, all, that is, save his own regiment, which was confined 
to its barracks, its ammunition called in, its side-arms and 
muskets chained and padlocked and guarded by doubled 
sentries, and, worst disgrace of all, with d’Angeli’s Corsicans 
stationed in the street without, with guns in the intervals of 
the companies trained upon the barrack gate. 

Sir George would take no risks, but neither would he yield 
one jot to the covert threat of mutineers in posse. He might 
have ordered this military execution to be carried out where 
he chose, in the moat, for instance, outside the South Port 


CRISIS 


368 

gates, escutcheoned with crumbling heraldries, or at the 
Arsenal, but no; the North Front was the place sanctioned 
by usage, and there this murderer should die, though Spain 
opened upon his firing party, or a mutinous regiment blocked 
the route. Our Governor would not inaugurate the greatest 
siege of the century by a display of nerves. 

Never had the condemned man felt himself more alive than 
at this, his last hour. With senses at their keenest, he observed 
the features of familiar thoroughfares and the human faces 
which lined them. At the corner of Prince Frederic Street 
he caught the eye of Painter waiting to see him pass. He had 
seen the woman thrice at her mistress’s door and knew her 
again. He confronted the sour pleasure of her look with no 
answering scorn. Of her mistress and her guests he could 
think at that moment without bitterness ; the fashion of this 
world was passing away and the lusts thereof. 

Through the Land Port the men tramped, down the length 
of the Governor’s Meadow, past Forbes’s Barrier, wound along 
the covered way for a while beneath the shadow of the enor- 
mous cliff ; then a few steps across the naked sands brought 
them to a spot near the eastern beach. There they halted, 
set their prisoner with his face to the south-east beside his 
open grave. Yes, it had come to this ; the passing about of 
petitions for reprieve, the lobbying and consulting and laying 
of heads together on the one side, and upon the other the 
tight-lipped refusals to move, backed by the ladies led by that 
dragon Trigge, pollice verso. 

It was not the Hardenbergs only who held to the theory of 
the man’s innocence. Many officers who had not sate upon 
the court-martial dissented from its findings and deplored 
its sentence : holding upon principle, as one may say, that 
no gentleman bearing His Majesty’s commission should be 
condemned for murder upon circumstantial evidence alone. 

The captain commanding the firing party was of this way 
of thinking, and went about his duty with resolute disgust, 
hoping against hope for a reprieve, for the intervention of 
something — anything, he cared not what. 

What were the views of the squad he commanded, who 
knows ? The twelve privates had been chosen by lot from 
as many different regiments, so that no corps in especial 
should bear the odium of the deed and incur the vengeance 
of the Hardenbergs. The prisoner, as he faced his executioners, 
beheld the variety of facings with a slight lift of the brows ; 
then, as his eye caught the weak, shifting glance of the man 
exactly in front of him, sixth from the right, it contracted 
with a swift effort of memory. Where had he met that 
fellow before ? A trivial question to engage the thoughts 


THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD 369 

of a man upon the edge of eternity, but it passed the time, 
and instantly the answer came to him ; he had seen that 
long nose and retreating chin beneath the peak of a montier- 
cap in a coach somewhere ; yes, and under a parson’s wig 
at a wedding — his own wedding ! The Reverend Octavius 
Baskett, B.A., stood before him, ex-servitor of Christ Church, 
Oxford ; more recently a felon and a fugitive from justice, 
and at present serving as Private Septimus Wallet in H.M. 
56th Regiment of Foot. 

The recognition was mutual and distasteful to both. Boyle 
glanced aside. 

The captain, growling like a surly bull-dog, dressed his 
men and passed down the line, inspecting the cartridges ; there 
should be no blanks. “ Load ! ” He repassed, inspecting 
the locks ; all were at full-cock ; there should be no shirking. 
All was ready ; he nodded to the chaplain. The burial service 
began, the old familiar words read over a living man. 

They had with them a sergeant’s guard of sappers, but 
chancing upon an old tenaille, the officer in command had 
forborne to break fresh ground. It was cast at him later, 
that had he obeyed the letter of his instruction, things had 
gone otherwise ; but let that be. 

The prisoner stood with his toes to the trench as the chap- 
lain began his office. He did not listen. His eyes were set 
upon the great expanse of sea before him, over which the low 
morning sun had spread a golden net. It was gloriously 
clear, ten thousand little waves were leaping upon one 
another’s shoulders to see the spectacle. There was a boat in 
the offing, a long, black boat ; he lost sight of it. He had 
declined the bandage, and by looking a trifle to the right 
could follow the perspective of crags, receding bastion beyond 
bastion along the precipitous Eastern Face ; could overlook the 
sands at their feet as far as Catalan Bay, and could see along 
those sands two figures running, a man and a woman. Hand- 
in-hand they ran, and were running fast, as those run who 
bring news which will not wait. The chaplain stammered on, 
but the dying man, so brimful of life and so keen of appre- 
hension, was watching those runners. Nearer they came, 
and nearer ; the woman ran well, but was plainly outpaced ; 
she stumbled, the other released her hand and came on alone. 
He was a native, by his red beret. The whimsical idea crossed 
Boyle’s mind that this Scorpion had news of J ustin. Suddenly 
he was almost sure of it, for the runner made signal, increasing 
his speed. 

The chaplain had finished ; he closed his book and stepped 
aside, turning his back upon what was to follow. There was 
a slight movement perceptible in the firing party, the men 

24 


CRISIS 


370 

loosening their shoulders in anticipation of the coming 
order. 

“ You will fire when ye see the handkerchief drop,” said 
the captain. “ Ready ! ’* The twelve muskets moved to 
the hip with mechanical precision 

I': Again the runner, too breathless and too distant to shout, 
flung up a hand. Boyle was convinced of it now, hope stirred 
within him, he had thought it dead, it was stung back to life, 
the life whose last sands were running ; he turned to the 
captain and opened his lips. 

“ Present ! ” The grey barrels came up to a level floor 
of burnished steel 

One runner, the woman, had dropped to a walk ; the man 
strained on, swinging his red cap. ’Twas now or never : this 
messenger had a purpose as regards himself, — himself ! 

>• “ Sir ! ” he said sharply, half turning ; but the stolid, un- 
imaginative Englishman, already warned by the jailor that 
the prisoner’s nerve was shaken, misunderstood him ; if there 
was going to be any play-acting or speech-making, if this 
fellow was weakening and was about to make a scene, why, 
the sooner this was over the better for all concerned. 

Boyle read his purpose in the man’s averted eye. “ But, 
sir — I say ! — Hold on for a moment ! — Look ! ” He threw 
a hand out in the direction of the runner. 

Too late ! The captain’s eye wavered, yes, he half turned ; 
but the lips had received their impulse. 

“ F-fi — halt! As you were!" he shouted, for the hand- 
kerchief had fluttered from his fingers and was falling. 

An irregular scattering volley rang out. Two of the squad 
withheld their fire ; of the rest, some drew trigger irresolutely 
and with barrels aslant ; one only, a man in the centre, 
with tight-clenched eyelids and blanched lips, drew with a 
grunt and with an accidentally well-levelled piece, and it 
was the 'bullet of Private Wallet that went home. The base 
of the brain was stricken, and, even as the prisoner stood 
there — lips parted in passionate appeal, eyes staring wide, 
and arm and finger at desperate stretch — the final change took 
place, and what had been Cornelius Boyle pitched forward 
into the trench without remark or the movement of a limb. 
The fallen bulk heaved for a moment as though some blind 
impulse moved it to bury itself in the sand, then the muscles 
relaxed, it accommodated itself to its pitiful posture and 
lay still. 

The captain turned upon his men a face a-work with anger, 
but recollected himself and said nothing. The thing was 
done ; the man was dead. The futility of words was obvious. 
After all, he had but carried out his orders. The chaplain 


THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD 371 

had seen nothing ; what the men might think or say did not 
count. “ Fill in ! ” he said, and stood biting his lip while 
the sappers plied their spades. 

But the runner was coming up, he had ceased waving. The 
captain recognised him now for Celestin Mistral, a fisherman, 
and went a few steps to meet him. The fellow, blown by his 
exertions, was panting hard. The blood was hammering in 
his ears ; he had not heard the volley ; the execution did not 
interest him. He had a marvellous tale to tell, rambling, 
incoherent, as the tale of a man is likely to be who has run a 
mile at speed : almost incredible too ; a tale of a human 
figure fixed against the face of the cliff high above the sea, 
in a position so sheer that no man could have reached it by 
climbing, nor have kept it for a minute had he gained it. 
“ Yes, he is there, senor ! I have seen him with these eyes, 
and the lady ” 

The woman runner was still afar, but coming ; the Catalan, 
having got his breath, grew voluble. 

“ She saw it first — she is a saint from heaven, senor, a 
very saint of God ! The Spanish galley it give chase, it make 
fire, two balls, senor; she turn them with the hant — so ! ” 

“ But this man on a rock, my friend ? What about him ? 
Who is he ? ” 

“ An officer, senor. Oh, yaas, an Englishman, and an officer 
by his uniform. Alive ? — mose certain he is alive. He move 
the arm, so ! ” 

“ My God ! ” ejaculated the Captain, with a side-glance at 
the wide-open eyes in that dead face in the tenaille, upon 
which the shovelled sand was falling. He recovered himself 
upon the instant. “ Quick, you fellows, there ; a woman is 
coming ! ” 

The spades worked fast ; when Susan, unconscious of what 
had happened, came up to substantiate Mistral’s incredible 
tale, the officer could command his voice. Private Wallet, 
the only man present who divined the lady’s interest in the 
dead, made no sign, and, as the party hurriedly turned their 
faces towards Forbes’s Barrier, the wife’s foot was upon the 
fresh-thrown sand which covered her faithless husband. 


BOOK VII 

FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


CHAPTER I 

JUSTIN IS MADE HAPPY 

They left the poor dead body in its last bed ; there was nothing 
more to be done for it. But the living, the living ! The 
tidings flew. Haste ye, oh, haste ! Seven days and nights ! 
Can he last but one more hour ? We will save him yet ! 

To the Arsenal then for a squad of riggers, dockyard mateys, 
handiest of mankind ; for shears and block-tackle, for two 
mule-loads of three-quarter-inch sennet and away to Mediter- 
ranean Battery ! 

Young Chisholm volunteered for the service ; nay, would • 
take no denial. Older men suggested a sailor, but the lad upon 
the spot had his way. 

“ Gin the tow iss soond I’ll not be caring a boddle. Ou, ay, 
’tis juist naething ava ; mony’s the time I’ve recovered sheep 
frae desks in Skillacorrie. ’Twill be a morn’s pleesure for a 
Hielan’man. Pay oot, there ; and mind the check -line, Travis ! ’ * 

But it was an awesome, shivery business, and of necessity 
tediously slow. The iron-nerved young mountaineer, his 
bottle of milk-and-brandy strapped under his arm, swung and 
clung and was lost to sight, and the interminable rope was 
paid out and out to an endless tenuity of small quivering cord. 

Many gallant deeds were done in the course of the four years’ 
siege, but none took men’s imagination more than this feat of 
cragsmanship. Others fought as soldiers fight, some better, 
some worse, a few supremely well ; but this was hors de r&gle . 
Those who watched said that at times he clung like a bat to 
a wall, and at others crawled like an ant, or hung spinning in 
the wind like a spider. 

Far below, three hundred and fifty feet above the sea and 


372 


JUSTIN IS MADE HAPPY 373 

four hundred below the parapet of the battery, a human figure 
stood stiffly upon its ledge, more like a statue in its niche than 
a thing of flesh and blood ; foodless, waterless for a week 
pa t, save for Thursday’s rain, and (think of this) knowing 
nothing of the means taken for its relief. 

“ I had to seek oot ma man first,” said Chisholm afterwards, 
“ and that wass nane sae easy, sirs ; for there iss a wheen 
desks doun yonder, I can tell ye. An’ yon Scorpion chiel in 
his boatie below was nane sae dee-finite in his signalling as 
I could ha’e wushed, ye mind. Ou, ay ; an’ when I spied 
ma man it wass nane sae easy to reach him. An’ the risk o’ 
lossing him at the last. I kenned weel that it wass upo’ the 
cairts that he micht slip through ma fingers at the feenish, as 
mony a sheep has dune. Ye creep, ye spik the douce word, 
and — hey ! — the puir silly beastie has moved and is ower the 
brink and gane for iver ! But the Colonel iss a man, sirs ! 
He wass far gane, nae doot, but his mind was his ain. His 
lips were moving, juist a whesper, nae mair. “ I — will not," 
he wass sayin’, meaning, as I take it, that he would not end 
the maitter by taking his ain life. It wass grand. Wow ! but 
there iss naething like resisting the teffle ! ” 

With infinite care they got him up — light enough he was, 

! a mummy, a thing of sun-dried skin and bone, kept together, 
as it were, by its bleached and ragged uniform, but alive. 

The stretcher-party bore him to his quarters ; the whole 
garrison was moved : in the little Spanish house two women 
embraced one another with wild sobbing and laughter. 

But the regimental surgeon shook his head. “And oh, tell 
me of your charity, my dear Mr. Cairncross, what is the treat- 
ment in a case like this.” The man addressed, surgeon of 
the 73rd, a person of large experience, rubbed a grizzled chin. 
“ Slops, my friend, and — after that what ye will, for I defy ye 
to kill your man. What ! Cannot ye see that he has made up 
i his mind to live ? ” 

The man had made up his mind to live, and there was no 
more to be said about it. There are men who are -practically 
unkillable. Every house-surgeon knows the type. A batch 
of deplorable objects is brought in from an explosion, say, or 
from a fire ; some collapse at once, bulky men of fine physique 
these, not by any means the worst cases, surgically considered, 
but there is something wanting in their organisations : they 
are susceptible to shock, and there is nothing to be done for 
them. Others die as the days and weeks go on : they are 
badly hurt, no doubt, if not so badly hurt as the worst ; but 
their will-power relaxes, they cease to struggle, and after that 
neither surgery nor nursing can put into them what is not 
there. But there are others, the one or the two, possibly the 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


374 

worst hurt of all, cases which, according to the books, have no 
right to live, cannot live, indeed, but who lie there for weeks 
muffled from head to foot in cotton-wool, calcined cinders of 
humanity, cracking their jokes with the sister and the surgeon 
until Death grows tired of waiting for them, and they pull 
through by dint of their own inherent vitality. 

The Colonel was of this type, sound, wiry, tenacious ; his 
doctor presently recognised that he had in him an excellent 
subject, and one whom it paid better to humour than to cross. 
Thus, when he asked for this one, or that, ’twas wisdom to 
allow him his visitor. 

His Excellency the Governor must come, must hear from 
feebly moving lips the true and particular story of how this 
man had come to be where he was, the history of those bullet- 
holes in the cloth, and the rest of it. The cap figured large in 
the recital. When blown from his head by poor Boyle’s would- 
be murderous shot it had fallen into a bush some twelve feet 
below the parapet, and had seemed so temptingly near and 
accessible that its owner must needs essay recovery. When 
almost in hand the thing had detached itself and fallen farther, 
and whilst he had leaned over to watch its fall, some twig or 
stone had given, and he himself had gone sliding, and catching, 
and sliding down the face, bringing up at length in a mass of 
prickly dwarf palm, scratched but uninjured, but in a position 
from which there was no exit upward. Thence he had followed 
the ledges and crevices downward for hours, until, exhausted 
by heat and thirst, some false movement, resulting in a second 
slip and scramble, had deposited him standing upon a ledge 
so narrow that movement in any direction was out of the ques- 
tion. The rest was the story of one hundred and seventy 
hours of barely endurable anguish, thirst, hunger, weariness ; 
baked through by the sun all day, chilled to the bone all 
night, he had held to his resolution and seen it out. 

His Excellency listened and nodded : he was one of those 
great spirits who are never in a hurry, and have always time 
upon their hands for a kind and thoughtful action. This 
was the man who, later in the siege, visited the bedside of a 
wounded prisoner for no other purpose than to induce the 
poor, broken-hearted fellow to submit to amputation, and 
succeeded. 

“Colonel, I wish ye a good-day, and shall hope to see ye again. 
My court-martial did no more than substantial justice, for 
your enemy was a murderer in intention, if not in fact.” 

There were other visitors to the bedside, and it was whilst 
in attendance there that young Chisholm, for whom the very 
stars in their courses would seem to have been fighting, 
sustained his second set-back. 


375 


JUSTIN IS MADE HAPPY 

His first had been the disconcerting discovery that the 
marriage repudiated by Boyle had been performed by an 
ordained clergyman and was valid. This information had been 
given him by Travis, ostensibly in a moment of brotherly 
confidence, but with the unexpressed purpose of forestalling 
complications. 

The death of Boyle having removed this impediment, 
Chisholm had hoped that by allowing a reasonable time for 
the girl’s mind to resettle after the shock, and to turn gradually 
toward himself, he would best attain his end. 

“ The leddy is puir, and so’s maseP : wow; but there’ll be 
gey quick promotion for some of us before lang. What if I 
ausk the Colonel to pair met a betrothal ? I wad wait for my 
company before marrying if they wad consent to nae better.” 

Thus musing, and awaiting his friend’s more complete 
restoration to lay his request before him, it was at the bedside 
itself, and from the feebly muttering lips of the half -slumbering 
convalescent (still a living skeleton and of an infantile weakness) 
that the lad learned the unwelcome news of his lady’s fortune. 

“ Dray, my boy,” whispered the sick man, mistaking his 
visitor for his ward, “Ye need not keep it from your sister 
any longer . . . She’s rich, and may just as well know it . . . 
Twenty thousand pounds. . . . Her husband, poor fellow, 
will never claim marital rights now. . . . Some fortune- 
hunters in the garrison may give us trouble ; there are plenty 
of needy men in the messes ; but her own good sense and 
ourselves can see to that ; eh, Dray ? ” 

“ Yes, sir, pairfeckly,” muttered poor Chisholm, and 
watched the Colonel drop asleep comforted with having got 
off his mind what had been troubling him, leaving his visitor 
gnawing a tortured lip. 

“ ’Tis not my faither’s son that will be miscalled fortune- 
hunter to the face of him twice, whateffer ! Twenty thoosan’ 
poonds English ! Oh, it cows ! How is a puir Scots shentle- 
man to gang coortin’ sic a leddy ? Hoo can I set a puir nief 
o’ thin shillings (a gulpin, nae mair) against twenty thoosan’ 
poonds English ? There’s nane wull believe I want her for 
hersel’. I’ll be the byword o’ the messes, a beggarly ad- 
venturer, a mercenary fortune-hunter ! ” 

And so it befell that when Sue would willingly have seen 
more of her friend, and was wanting to hear from his own lips 
the thrilling tale of his two hours at the tow’s end (a feat 
which had made men’s heads swim to think of), the poor, 
proud lover gravely and shyly held aloof. 

Nor were opportunities for distinguishing himself forth- 
coming (he underrated the impression made by his rescue : 
in his own eyes it was not War, and War alone counted). 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


376 

Spain, content with having stopped the cattle-ships, had laid 
her plans for a blockade ; there would be no assault. 

Meanwhile, unaware of the distress which he had caused to 
a lad for whom he entertained the warmest admiration and 
would have gone far to serve, the patient was gaining in 
strength daily. Susan, of course, must see him, and with 
Susan came Julia Hollinghurst, a-tremble with hard-curbed 
feeling. If no mutual understanding was come to, at least 
the interview improved the patient’s spirits and was repeated. 
The ladies were often with him ; he was pronounced out of 
danger ; his ultimate recovery was certain ; each day registered 
an advance, and other visitors were admitted. 

Celestin Mistral came, by request of the patient, hardly 
by permission of the doctor, but the Colonel was now mending 
so fast, and making flesh so rapidly, as to have practically 
resumed command of his room. He was impatiently watching 
the door ; the lean, lightly-stepping Catalan entered silently, 
and took his stand at the foot of the bed, making the graceful, 
self-respecting salutation of his nation to the senor and the 
ladies, Mrs. Hollinghurst and Sue, seated one upon either side 
of the bed’s head, the former somewhat behind it. 

“ My man (Mistral is your name, they tell me), I am 
truly glad to see you again. Never, I think, was I so glad to 
see any one as when I saw you below me that morning. What ? 
— three weeks ago, is it ? ” 

“ Three weeks and two days, my colonel. I haf the honour 
to offer you, and these ladies, my congratulations, ah ! — from 
the heart, senor ! ” 

“ I am obliged to you, my man. I have sent for you, 
Mistral, to thank ye. If ever living man owed thanks to 
another they are due from me to you. And now comes my 
difficulty. I can never repay ye what I owe ; but my heart 
will not be at rest unless ye allow me to make sure that ye 
join in my happiness. This little purse ” 

“ Senor — my colonel,” exclaimed the fisherman, making 
a half-step back, and withdrawing the hand which he had 
instinctively extended in response to the first movement of 
Justin’s, “that cannot be. What I did I did for hire. I 
am paid, yes, senor, overpaid already. The good God does 
not bless the fishing of those who are paid twice. The senora 
— Your pardon, senora ! ah, what have I said ? ” He stopped, 
hesitating at the hand which Mrs. Hollinghurst had lifted in 
warning. Justin, who had not been intended to see the signal, 
but who had seen it reflected in a wall-glass behind the Catalan, 
turned his head towards the lady, but she had hastily risen, 
and had left the room. 

“ Ah, senor, is it that I, then, have done wrong ? Have 


JUSTIN IS MADE HAPPY 377 

they not told you ? When I ventured I did it at the lady’s 
bidding. ‘ Recover the senor’s body,’ she said. Yes, two 
hundred dollars for the senor’s body, or a thousand for him 
living ! And since, by the grace of God, you are alive, the 
bounteous senora who has just left the room has paid me the 
reward promised. How, then, shall I accept money from your 
hand, my colonel ? ” 

“ She engaged you to search, and has paid you for finding, 
and has kept it from me ? She did all this. Here, man, 
take this purse for your news. Let me touch your hand, my 
friend, so ! And now I will bid good-day t’ye. To our 
better acquaintance when I am about again. . . . Sue, where 
is Mrs. Hollinghurst ? Get her here — fetch her. Yes, ye 
may say I need her at once — at once, Sue.” 

The girl sped light-heeled, radiant with anticipation, not a 
thought in her heart of her own part in the matter, which 
to another might have seemed overlooked. For the boat- 
expedition and the race she had been thanked already and 
abundantly. What more wanted she ? Her success was in 
itself an overflowing reward. After all, the Catalan was Julia’s 
discovery (her own intervention came second). Let Julia be 
crowned for the feat. “ Julia ! he wants you; he is calling 
for you ; he said ” 

Justin heard the soft frou-frou of woman’s dress, and the 
gentle closing of the door behind the screen. “Ye sent for me, 
Colonel.” Mrs. Hollinghurst was beside him, a woman softly 
bright, the right nurse aspect, inwardly tense to the breaking 
point. 

“ Madam, what is this ? The man Mistral tells me ” 

“ Sir, ye must not excite yourself — the doctor ” 

“ Be hanged to him ! I am a well man this minute, ma’am ! 
Answer me. Is it to you — to you that I owe my worthless 
life ? ” 

Her mouth was all a-quiver, her eyes swam in happy tears. 

“ Then, Julia, ’tis yours, if ye will have it. I had hoped — 
I had thought to say this when I was up and out again, when 
I was sure of — of my strength. It seems such a poor thing to 
offer, a man upon his back ; in the ward, too ; but such as 
he is, such as ye have made him, ma’am ” 

The woman was already upon her knees beside the bed, her 
face hid in the coverlit, weeping passionate tears of joy. The 
bed stirred under her. Her small right hand lay just beyond 
his reach, he wrought to reach it, caught and held it, “ May 
I keep it ? ” 

“ ’Tis yours, sir, long since. Did ye not save it ? Oh, Wade, 
Wade, think well what ye are doing. I am the poorest 
creature ; no match for such as ye, sir ! ” 


CHAPTER II 


A FORLORN HOPE 

And now, if I did my duty, or consulted my own inclination, 
I should introduce a discursus upon Human Action considered 
as the Resultant of co-operant and antagonistic forces. I 
won’t ; but will confess to laying the pen down with a sigh, 
thinking what one of the Great Names of my craft would have 
made of such an opportunity in the unhurried days wherein 
an author wrote to please himself, whilst his public — a leisured 
and discriminating public it must have been — took thankfully 
from his hand what he considered to be best for it. 

Come to think of it, the most trivial, as the most conspicuous 
of our resolutions and performances, are due to the push-and- 
pull of people of whom we know very little, or possibly nothing. 
It is so with Earth’s greatest ; a Napoleon is dragged willy- 
nilly to Moscow by the necessities of a false position, fights 
his Leipsig on compulsion, and is stranded upon St. Helena 
by a series of fatuous mistakes (his own and other people’s) 
arising from defective information, imperfect apprehension, 
stupidity, and the nature of things. 

In a word, we none of us stand alone. 

Here, in this my story, but just out of focus, are crowds 
of worthy folk, surly German foot-soldiery, silent Quaker 
seamen, each man of them living his own life and conceiving 
of himself as the centre of the universe, the ages having been 
expended in bringing just himself to the birth, and all human 
circumstance revolving around his five-feet-nine of warm, 
sentient, esurient humanity. I would realise every man of 
them all to you, but who is sufficient for these things ? Who 
of us can even depict a crowd ? Yet they are very far from 
lay figures, these living, breathing, fellow-men ; and all through 
this story, unknown to themselves and to us, they have been 
influencing its action, and now, for once, the deflection of a 
principal character is obviously due to their repulsion. 

The officers’ mess of Lord M'Leod’s regiment was quite 
human ; its individual members were subject to the infirmity 

378 


A FORLORN HOPE 


379 

of petty jealousy, for instance, as our young friend Chisholm 
was made aware. To his brother ensigns, and to the captains 
above them in rank, there seemed of late to have been just a 
little too much Chisholm. To these gentlemen, every man of 
whom was poor and keen, their fellow-subaltern’s luck in 
holding the centre of the stage was an offence. This hawk- 
nosed, red-faced lad with the unflinching eyes, who had 
silently forereached upon the other subalterns, and was said 
to be known by sight to His Excellency the Governor himself, 
must needs have been regarded askance by envious captains 
who asked for nothing but fair play and the chances of service, 
and could see favouritism in a change of weather. In such 
presence young John must walk warily : he would have been 
snubbed had he given his rivals an opportunity. 

To our dispassionate view theirs is ridiculous. What had 
he done ? His evidence had cost a (comparatively) innocent 
man his life ; his skill and nerve had saved a doomed man 
from death : the feats might be held to cancel one another, 
but both were the talk of the Rock, and at a time when there 
was nothing else to discuss. 

The youth’s accomplishments laid him under suspicion, and 
his personality, simple as it seems to us, was an enigma to 
his comrades. “ Had he nae the English ? ” We were hardly 
aware of it, but the blend of Lowland Scotch that is spoken at 
Perth (where Chisholm had spent a year in learning it), com- 
plicated by constructions and transpositions natural to a man 
who still dreamed in the Gaelic, was erudition to the Mackays, 
Mackenzies, Sutherlands, and Gunns, who still thought in the 
tongue which our first parents used in Paradise, and were 
slowly and painfully acquiring a bowing acquaintance with 
the language of the book of military regulations. To them 
his fluency was phenomenal ; they credited him with the gift 
of tongues (to do him justice, the lad had facility, and had 
improved his opportunities ; was he not at work at his Mogh- 
rebi “ curly-whirlies ” ?). 

But this was not the worst. The fellow was too lucky to 
be popular. Alone of his mess he had lady friends. This 
favoured youngster had the entree of the little Spanish house 
in Prince Frederic Street ; he was a persona grata to Mrs. 
Hollinghurst, whose reputation for opulence had not diminished 
in its passage from mouth to mouth, and now included the 
lady’s fellow guest. With this lady he had made the passage 
out ; did he not cultivate the friendship of the lady’s brother ? 
— had he not put her guardian under an obligation ? 

The inference was too obvious to dispute ; yet the ridiculous 
fellow did dispute it, and, upon an occasion, when greatly 
pushed, had sworn hotly that he had neither prospect nor 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


380 

expectation of marriage, and that as to the jocularities and 
innuendos of gentlemen whose rank and the regulations pre- 
vented him from replying to them as he would have preferred 
to do, he begged them to believe once for all that the person 
at whom he understood them to be aimed, whose name should 
on no account pass his lips, was just as poor as himself. 

After such a declaration by a lover in such company the 
discovery of his lady’s fortune was a sore blow. He raged 
under it, silently, for there was not a soul to whom he could 
confide his trouble. Fate, whilst removing one stumbling- 
block from his path, had maliciously replaced it by another. 
" Fortune-hunter,” the Colonel had called him ; unconsciously, 
no doubt, and by implication merely, but the word had gone 
home, and the wound to his pride rankled. And what would 
his mess think, and say, if close upon the heels of his passionate 
repudiation he announced his betrothal to a lady of fortune 
whose means he had so singularly depreciated during his 
courtship ? 

These were the men with whom he must spend the next 
few years of his life ; there is no escape from one’s mess in a 
besieged garrison ; no selling out ; no exchange ; nor, in his 
case, any opportunities for the service to which he looked for- 
ward — some desperate feat, some forlorn hope which might 
set his sword in the scale against his lady’s guineas. 

No, there was (as it seemed) to be no fighting. But there 
would be scurvy. It had already appeared, and would soon 
be epidemic. Fresh food the garrison must have ; but whence 
was it to be obtained ? The fleet ? The fleet having careened 
and cleaned ship, had sailed for Home, where it would arrive 
in time to be cooped up at Spithead for the rest of the summer, 
relinquishing the Channel to the combined armadas of France 
and Spain, which swept our flag from the home seas and threat- 
ened us with invasion. A grievous time for England : her 
senior service was not at its brightest ; there was slackness, 
petulance, want of enterprise and absence of co-operation all 
round. English commanders were content with cannonades 
at long range, and complicated and tedious evolutions in 
which French seamanship scored, leaving us the sere laurels 
of indecisive engagements, such as that off Brest. After 
months of this sort of thing, the admirals would quarrel 
and come home complaining that their subordinates could 
not be depended upon to see the signal for close fighting. 
Our best man, Rodney, crippled by gout and debt, was hiding 
from his creditors in Paris. The day of Nelson* and his band 

* Then a penniless lieutenant of twenty-one and an unknown 
quantity. 


A FORLORN HOPE 381 

of heroic brethren, ready to dare all, and to second one another 
to the uttermost, was still afar. 

Gibraltar was left to its own resources ; scarcity was staring 
the Governor in the face ; there would be deaths from sheer 
privation presently. But one thing at a time. How was he 
to combat this new enemy, scurvy ? 

And in the very nick, a brig flying English colours came 
up under reefed topsails before a Levanter, dipping her dolphin- 
striker at every plunge, for all she rode so high and was so 
crank. Round the Point she came, close inshore, and made 
her way in quiet water to the Arsenal. 

It was the Mary of Yarmouth back from Port Mahon with 
a cargo of — what think you ? — lemons, my friend ! and, by 
God’s grace, Spanish onions ! — commodities priceless at that 
juncture, which her Quaker skipper was, as appeared, willing 
to sell at something less than the famine prices which the 
absurd fellow might have asked and taken. 

The good soul went to pay his respects to “ Miss Susan, 
ma’am,” bringing a present of grapes and pomegranates ; 
saw the Colonel, heard the news ; saw “ Mister Chis’sm,” 
and, deeply pondering, went aboard again dissatisfied. Sue 
returned his call, as did her lover, but they did not call upon 
the same day, and there were a forced gaiety and a restlessness 
in the manner of both : Furley prayed and pondered. 

And still the lover held aloof from his love, punishing himself 
and her. How that sweet little face pursued him with its 
aspect of mute wonder, sad, puzzled, not yet reproachful, 
but with a dawning consciousness of unmerited suffering in 
its eyes ! How every trait of it appealed to him, the low 
broad brow, the full, sweet mouth with its small, gray, mouse- 
ear mole beside the upper lip ! Ah, but it maddened him, 
this vile misery of being poor and proud. 

And again Chisholm came aboard and sate in a pit of dour 
silence, from which his old friend would in no wise help him 
out ; and as they sate, discoursing at whiles of trivialities, the 
threat of half rations, the rumour that the Channel blockade 
had been raised, and that the White Lappel had plucked up 
heart again to see the back of the Wight, the prospects of 
an autumn convoy, and (mark this, an’ it please ye) the 
price of beef , the men’s eyes met. Which spoke first ? Did 
the flint strike fire from the steel, or the steel from the flint ? 
In a dozen sentences the thing was broached, accepted, and 
planned. The men arose, holding one another’s hands. 

■ ‘ B’Gawd, Master Chis’sm, yew’r a man ! ” 

“ By Cot, Maister Furley, ye are anither ! ” 

* . • • • 

The Governor glanced up as his visitors were announced. 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


382 


and laid down the lemon which he was sucking : his eye 
twinkled. “ I have to thank ye for this, Mr. Furley. What 
is your will ? ” 

Of Chisholm the great man took no direct notice, but the 
Ensign felt his commander’s eye upon him, and knew that he 
was known. 

It was Furley, his woollen nightcap still upon his head, 
Quaker-fashion, who plunged straight into business. 

“ Friend Eliott, yew’ve run out o’ beef. It sorter sim’d 
to me, and my young friend hare, as how we might goo and 
git ye some.” 

“ Ho ? ” remarked the Governor, “ is that it ? I appre- 
ciate your good intents, but things have worsened since ye 
cleared for Mahon, sir. Ye come too late. Tangier and 
Tetuan and the other cattle-ports are closed to us.” 

“ But the Riff Coast be much as usual, friend.” 

“ The pirate coast ? We have never traded thither ; nor 
have we an agent.” 

“ Mebbe. But we reckons as how we could find ye one. 
Sims the Sultan o’ Barbary be a bit upset with ye ; but he 
be alius upset with they rifhans. Time he were friendly 
they boarded us ; now he’s contrary we reckons to find ’em 
well-dispoged. D’ye see ? ” 

The Governor stared. “ They are masterless savages : so 
much we all know. What more do ye know about them ? 
Ah, I remember, ye did some of them an excellent good turn. 
Which reminds me, Mr. Furley, that I miscalled ye once, for 
which, knowing ye better, I have since been sorry.” 

“ ‘ God A’mighty’s Jackass,’ was it ? What o’ that ? 
Not a mossel o’ harm in the word, friend Eliott ; fact, I took 
it for praise. Come to think on’t, an ass were the only thing 
as my Saviour ever said He had need of. ... Yes ; as to 
them Moors, we did ’em as we’d be done by, and naterally 
ain’t afeared to look ’em in the face next time as we meets 
’em. But, friend, we’ve another anchor out to winnard, my 
young friend Chis’s’m hare,” turning to the subaltern, “ Spik 
up tew’m, bor ! ” 

The lad saluted, and stood ready to explain his proposals 
upon permission granted. His General looked him over. 
y “ Ha, my dragoman extraordinary ! Still at your Moghrebi?” 

“ I am, your Excellency; it passes the time. But in this 
business I am na leaning upon my puir skill in a deeficult 
language.” 

“ And what plan is this of yours, Mr. Chisholm ? ” The 
Governor’s eye was kind and encouraging ; it was thus he 
won the men who backed him through. 

“ Sir, there iss a laddie wha works for the Catalans roon* 


A FORLORN HOPE 383 

at the Eastern Face, wha I haf foregaithered wi’. He iss a 
Moor. He swam ashore from the guarda costa that ventured 
in too close on the morn of the execution, and wass sunk by 
a shot from the masked battery. Noo, sir, by God’s grace 
the lad is ane of Maister Furley’s seven guests. He thinks a’ 
the warl’ of Maister Furley. He says that Maister Furley’s 
day’s wark iss the talk o’ the Riff Coast, and that we wad 
be feasted there. Ou, ay, I ken weel that we maunna pit 
muckle faith in a heathen Moor, forbye, he wass a slave when 
he escapit, for the Raid had brent his village and sold him 

> to the Spaniards at Ceuta, and naiturally he will sing a guid 
\ sang to win hame ance mair.” 

“ And knowing all this ? ” queried the Governor. The 
I lad nodded. 

“ Ou, ay. There’s a pickle resks aboot the job, but sae 
I there is in the fechtin’ ” 

“ Or in rope-work on the face of a cliff, young sir ! . . . But 

> this may mean slavery. If ye get into the hands of the Riff 
Moors I know not how I may get ye out. Well, on with your 
tale. I am all attention.” 

“ Sir, the laddie professes that his faither is a sheik, and 
that his people have never a market for their kye. I wad 
trust him. I haf taken the bread and the salt wi’ him efter 
; the Eastern manner, and wad make bluid-britherhood too, 

| gin ye gif me leave to gang wi’ him.” 

Eliott nodded gravely once or twice, and deliberately took 
snuff. “ I commend your ingenuity, sir, and your zeal. 

I The risk is such that unless I was sorely in need of meat I 
would not risk plack nor boddle upon the quest, let alone a 
brisk young Scots officer. But if I am to hold this place, 
beef I must have, nor can I await the pleasure of the King’s 
! navy, which seems to be busy elsewhere. 

“ I could give your captain letters of marque and lend 
I him armament. How many guns, sir ? ” turning to Furley, 

1 who bristled almost fiercely. 

“ Not a pop-gun ; not a pistol. God forbid ! them’s our 
: prencipyles, sir, and them’s our safety tew. Doon’tye see 
as we gooes tew them there Moors as Friends ? ‘ Sheep in 

the midst o’ wolves ’ (Matthew ten, sixteen). We got tew be 
wise as sarpints and harmless as doves. If so be as they 
entreats us kindly and is willin’ tew trade beef, why, we trades. 
If so be as they rounds on us and takes us, why, we’re took.”^ 

The Governor nodded more gravely, repressing, as we may 
suppose, fresh references to inspired jackasses. “ And your 
company, are they agreeable ? ” he asked. 

“ Wholly agreeable — or thereabouts. Thee see we bin 
and formed ourselves intew a Preparative Meetin’ (I’ve a 


3«4 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


fancy to dew the thing shipshape), and I lain my consarn 
afore ’em.” 

“You mean you voted upon it ? ” asked the Governor, 
inwardly tickled at the idea. 

“ Gawd forbid, friend ! That ain’t our way — the way o’ 
Friends. We set tew and considered it. Some sez one thing and 
some anawther, and I, bein’ clerk, took the weight of the Meetin’ 
to be for liberatin’ me for the sarvice. Tew or three of ’em 
was for appealin’ to the Monthly Meeting, what sits in London, 
or for resignin’ membership ; but when I lain it down as how 
they was free to appeal, and free to resign, but must work my 
ship meantime, they soon toes the line. ’Tis our Friends’ 
way, and a good way tew ; no votin’, no disputin’, no hollerin’, 
no argerin’ neyther, but jest the gentle leadin’s o’ the Holy 
Sperrit.” 

The Governor turned to his fellow-countryman. “ You 
understand him, Mr. Chisholm ? ’Tis Grick to me ! ” 

“ He means he juist set his fut doun, sir. Ou, 
trust him.” 




CHAPTER III 


CAPTAIN FURLEY MAKES PORT 

“ He has done the thing often, Sue ; keep your heart up.” 

“ I know, I know ! But oh, Dray, he — they, I mean, are 
hours overdue, and 'tis such a short run.” 

“ That is nothing. The wind fell light last night before 
the rain began, and now ’tis so thick that they may be close 
in and we fail to pick them up. The glass dews over as fast as 
ye wipe it. Here, let me give it a polish for ye.” 

Travis was in command of one of the new batteries at 
Europa Point. His sister was beside him, peering out through 
an embrasure over a steamy, rainy sea. The horizon was 
dirty, and low, and near, and unflecked by a sail. They 
waited and watched, using the glass at intervals, the man 
concealing from the girl the secret anxieties which oppressed 
him. 

££ Hush, Dray, I heard something out there ! ” 

It seemed unlikely, but the man, back from the twentieth 
inspection of his darling pieces, and satisfied for the moment 
that their breeches were clothed from the wet and their 
tompions fitting, lent a tolerant ear. 

££ There it goes again, Dray ! ” Travis nodded gravely. 
££ I heard it, a gun, light metal. Let me have the glass. The 
Mary it must be ; a brig, anyway ; and heading right for us.” 

££ But she cannot be firing, she carried ” 

“ No guns ? More’s the pity ! Your good old Furley is 
just as mad as a March hare. Well, well, with all his absurdi- 
ties he has run a dozen cargoes of good beef when nobody 
but he would look at the business. Bang ! There it goes 
again ! ” 

££ I caught the flash that time. Dray; but it came from the 
water astern of her. Oh, let me look ! ... No use ! my hands 
shake so. . . . Is there, or is there not, something farther 
out ? ” 

Her brother did not reply for a while : he dried the lens and 
refocussed carefully before speaking. 

385 


25 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


3S6 

“ Sue, old girl, ye had best fall to your prayers. There is 
another of those cursed galleys closing up on Furley, and 
unless this wind freshens we shall see him taken before my 
guns can help him.” 


And how was it going meanwhile aboard the Mary of 
Yarmouth ? The little brig, with every stitch set and drawing, 
was slipping through the water before a south-westerly breeze 
abaft her beam, a cargo of beans in bulk under hatches, and 
her waist filled with dun-coloured, wild-eyed bullocks, tethered 
by their long horns to a boom hung low between her masts. 
The run should have been made at night, but a calm had held 
her idle for some hours, and had now broken with rain — a hot 
steaming downpour from off the Altantic. Daylight had shown 
her to the enemy; that watchful galley had made her out, 
and was coming up astern, overhauling her slowly, for the 
Mary was upon her best point of sailing, and, if the breeze 
freshened, might gain the shelter of the Rock batteries yet. 

“ Friend, I’ll take thy trick,” said Furley, coming aft and 
relieving a long-faced steersman over whom a couple of dis- 
quieting balls had flown high. Zabulon, I’ll thank thee 
to git all hands to the shovels and trim them there beans aft. 
She be a mossel down by the head. Fill up the cabin-bunks 
and all. The corn’ll stop a shot or two, mebbe. Here come 
another pill ! ” 

The swivel spoke again, again the ball flew wide. The 
hands below hatches passed buckets of beans through the 
scuttle in the cabin-floor ; the bunks were filled, the cabin 
itself was soon knee-deep, and still the work went on. Chisholm, 
standing beside his captain, could hear the grating of shovels 
and taste the dust. 

“ Middlin’ practice, Mister Chis’sum,” remarked Furley, 

■ ‘ If I cou’n’t lay a gun no better nor that, I’d — I’d — tarn a 
Quaker ! But there ! ” sighing regenerately, “ this ain’t no 
talk for One of Us.” 

The skipper handled his tackles, running an eye over his 
canvas at intervals, and once in a while scrutinising the 
slowly nearing galley. The man’s phlegm tickled his young 
companion to the edge of laughter. Chisholm had never been 
under fire before, and was in a fine glow of high spirits, but 
anxious withal to be doing something. 

A shot plumped in through the brig’s run as the westerly 
swell lifted her stern ; the beans absorbed its momentum ; it 
knocked heavily at the cabin floor for admission, and lay 
quiet. 

“ Tha’s better ! ” remarked the master, with the feeling of 


CAPTAIN FURLEY MAKES PORT 387 

a connoisseur for a successful effort in his art, and bade his crew, 
who came scuttling up from below in dismay, muster beneath 
the shelter of the break of the poop. Thence, a row of pallid 
faces, they watched their steersman, a deep-chested, imper- 
turbable figure, until a still better-directed missile crashed 
through the stern bulwark below the taffrail, cut the star- 
board tiller-tackles, grazed the rail above the watchers’ heads, 
ricochetted through the mainsail, and pitched ahead of the 
vessel. 

“ There’s gunnery for ye,” said Furley, shifting his hold 
to the tiller itself when the gear parted. The watchers, who 
had ducked at the wind of the shot with painfully caught-in 
breaths, heard his comment with astonished admiration. 

“ They be layin’ for ye, sir ! ” cried Sweetapple. 

“ More fools they, as would be better empl’yed a-layin’ 
for my top-hamper.” 

“ But keep low, old friend ; do ’ee kneel, now.” 

“ I kneels to my Maker. Never did kneel tew an inemy, 
and ain’t a-goin’ t’ begin to-day. Skip aloft, one on ye, and 
tell us how we lays for the point. Can’t see nawthin’ forrard 
. . . weather be thick as Limehouse on a frosty mornin’.” 

The breeze freshened ; the rain stung at times ; the brig 
made better way ; the gunnery fell off. A voice from the fore 
cross-trees apprised the deck of a big ship coming up hand over 
hand from the south-west. Chisholm’s suspense drove him 
aloft, whence he presently hailed the news that the stranger 
was pierced for two tiers of guns. 

; “ Can’t make out her colours yet, sir.” 

The newcomer rose fast, bringing the wind with her. She 
was setting her studding-sails ; her royals followed. It was 
plain that she had discovered the position of affairs and was 
for intervening ; but upon which side ? 

Chisholm hailed again. “ ’Tis not the Jack, sir, ” a 

moment of grimmest suspense. “ Spain, Mr. Furley, red and 
; yellow.” 

Sweetapple meanwhile had made out the brig’s position, 
O’Hara’s Tower showing for a moment dimly through the 
rain, and too nearly ahead for their comfort. Furley growled 
something about the indraught from the Straits carrying him 
east of his port, and laid his brig a point closer to the wind. 
This lost her some of her way, and the galley crept up and 
recommenced firing, and with effect : more than one gap 
showed in the taut wet clothes overhead. 

The master’s heart rose with the call upon his courage and 
skill. 

“ ’Twill be touch-and-go, my hearties, so ye might jest as 
well be putting up your bits of prayers. Thee, Friend 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


388 

Sammle (to the boatswain), fall tew, if thee feels like it.” 
“ Oh yes, sartinly, a nearish thing. . . . I’m more con- 
sarned for that there two-decker nor for this skimmin’-dish of 
a row-boat. Meantime, there’s nawthin’ for it but tew kip 
on keepin’ on. Bimeby, please God, they’ll sorter find them- 
selves tew nigh the batteries for peace an’ comfort.” 

Since the accident to his tackles, Furley was steering by the 
tiller itself ; one massive thigh pressed to the timber held the 
brig to her course. The man occasionally propped himself 
upon his left hand, as he peered into the driving rain astern 
in search of the warship. 

With what painful anxieties the crew watched their steers- 
man ; upon his judgement hung their liberties, possibly their 
live : Spain was ungentle to captives. Now and again, 
when the Mary rose sidelong at the westerly swell, that row of 
puckered eyes just above the level of the poop planking got 
a glimpse of the dripping overhang of the galley’s foreship, the 
gleam of brass, and the dip and rise of speeding oars. 

Crash ! The oaken rail above their heads had flown to 
matchwood, had been struck by something, and there, in 
the lee scuppers, close to their eyes, rolled a human hand and 
forearm. And there across his tiller sprawled the skipper, 
struggling to get his legs under him. 

“ Hurt ? ” The mate was up the ladder in two leaps, but the 
master had regained his feet and had thrown a leg over the 
tiller. 

“ Back wi’ ye — this hare’s my job ! ” 

“ Likely ’tis, but this here’s mine ! ” rejoined the bone- 
setter, and, whilst speaking, had drawn from his fob a hank 
of lay-cord and cast a clove-hitch around the spouting stump 
of his friend’s left arm. The patient submitted under protest, 
“ I were leanin’ on it . . . They sorter shot it from under me 
and let me down,” he remarked in his own excuse, still steering 
with his legs. “ Pretty practice considerin’ the sea that’s 
runnin’,” he added, watching the rude surgery in progress. 
Sweetapple had laid a hand-spike between the bone and the 
great biceps, and, using the stem of a tobacco pipe as a lever, 
had swiftly and sternly twisted his ligature until the metal 
pressed home upon the severed artery. 

“ Tha’s neat, bor ; thee’ve stopped her” was the patient’s 
comment. “ And now back thee gets under cover agin.” 

“ Norrabit. I’ll relieve ye — ’tis my dooty.” 

“ Blame thy eyes, and thy dooty tew ! I be master o’ 
this hare craft, and I’ll trouble thee to obey orders ! ” The 
man was swaying as he spoke, and as Zabulon saw, who spoke 
again. 

“ Thomas, ye be more hurt than ye know — I'm bound to 


CAPTAIN FURLEY MAKES PORT 389 

stay by ye ; fact, ’tis my trick. But afore takin’ over the 
deck I should jest like ” — that phial was coming out again — 
‘‘ Ef ye’ll be so good as to be so kind as jest to allow me to 
’noint ye — not more’n a leetle drop, but mixed wi’ the prayer 
o’ faith, ye know ” — the stopper was out. 

“ Git thee t’leeward o’ me, Zabulon,” growled Furley, “ thee 
and thy mucky iles is an offence to me. . . . Fact, thou 
savourest somethin’ disgustin’ ! ” 

How long the dispute would have lasted, and to what heights 
of scriptural animadversion might have risen, who can say ? 
But whilst the two old comrades argued nose to nose, both 
speaking at once, the galley-swivel, now within easy range, 
opened with grape. A capful of musket-balls swished 
through the canvas, the peak-halliards parted, letting the 
gaff down ; a wounded sheet gave, but the eyes of the crowd 
in the waist were held by what was happening aft. The 
Anointer, taken in the midst of his argument, flung his chin 
up, closed his eyes tightly, and turning half round, pitched 
stiffly down the sloping deck. The strong life was out of the 
body before it had ceased sliding. 

Furley had fallen too, and was now propped against his 
tiller, around the loom of which he had thrown his great right 
arm. Badly hurt he knew himself ; a dying man he might 
be, but the Mary should be kept full. 

A cry of horror broke from the watchers ; it reached the 
lookout. 

“ Who's hit ? Is the master well ? ” hailed Chisholm, but 
got no answer save a confused outcry, for all were exclaiming 
together. Their leaders were down, there was none to take 
over the command, nor, for the moment, any to lend succour. 
That stretch of shot-swept, blood-streaked planking was not 
to be passed by men of ordinary nerves. Do you blame them ? 
Would you, sir, have been braver ? Should I, or another 
non-combatant, have been more prompt ? These were common 
merchant jacks, unfamiliar with the face of war, and shaken 
by their first experience of the bloody business. The boat- 
swain pottered, white-faced and irresolute ; the cattle in the 
waist broke into terrified clamour, writhing tethered necks, 
for something had fallen from aloft. The boy Titus blubbered 
aloud ; some one bade him be still, but, still blubbering, the 
child scrambled up the poop-ladder, dropped upon hands 
and knees and crawled along the lee scuppers, passing with 
tightly closed eyes and streaming cheeks those ghastly trophies 
of Spanish marksmanship, reached and took the tiller, still 
blubbering. 

“ G’back, thee whelp ! ” growled Furley through the 
clenched teeth of a mortal agony. 


390 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


“ I ’oon’t g’back ! Oh, lemme steer her, sir ! Oh, lemme 
take a trick for oncst ! O, dew lemme ! ” 

“ Thee steer my ship — a bit of a booy ? Goo forrard wi’ 
thee ! ” Then, as the boy, squirming between fear of Spanish 
shot and the wrath of his dying captain, retained his hold 
upon the tiller, “What ails thee, Titus ? Whoy dussent thee 
obey orders ? Hain’t I hided thee enough ? To think that 
I’ve bin and gone and rope’s-ended thee every Sixth-day 
raglar, on prencipyle, and thee to up and mutiny as soon’s 
my back is shot threw ! ” 

“ Yessir ; noosir ; ’tain’t that. I een’t a mewtineer ; that 
I een’t ! And I ’oon’t desert ye, not for noo orders ! ” 

And it was there that Chisholm presently found him, a- 
quake with the horror of death, the blood of his dying captain 
upon his bare toes, still blubbering, but keeping her full. 

“ There’s the root of the matter in boy Titus ; he should 
be One of Us,” murmured Furley. The youngster heard and 
felt his little heart swell with the pure pride that wells up 
when honest service is fully recognised. 

It was nearly over now ; the next two minutes would see 
it through one way or the other. The batteries on the Point 
were almost within range, but the galley was very near, and 
behind the galley the tall Spanish two-decker, boiling through 
the water under a press of sail, a tower of snowy canvas, 
silent as yet, her ports closed. 

The rowers were bending wet backs to it, their masters 
flourishing canes over them. Chisholm, erect beside the tiller, 
could see the whole deadly apparatus of the wicked-looking 
craft — the central gangway that divided the eight benches, 
the steersman aft and the gun forward — as she slid down the 
hither side of a wave with the man-o’-war in close attendance, 
anxious to share the prize. That swivel was ready again, 
the gunner stooped behind his piece waiting for his sights to 
come on ; when she lifted to the next swell he would fire. 
It was close, and horrible, and menacing. Grape at two 
hundred yards leaves little to chance. Was this to be the end 
of it ? Life was strong and sweet within him ; he had hoped 
— There ! The two-decker was coming into it at last. A 
mere cable’s-length astern of the galley by this time, she was 
luffing to bring her whole broadside to bear, no trusting to 
bow-chasers : this would end it. Her ports flew up, out ran 
the black muzzles of two tiers of guns. The young Scot 
found himself counting the moments. This was not just as 
he would have planned it. He longed to strike back. Furley, 
sinking lower, groaned once, and the boy never ceased his 
whimpering or took his eyes from the sails. 

A roar — every porthole spouted flame, Chisholm felt the 


CAPTAIN FURLEY MAKES PORT 391 

hairs of his scalp creep ; he caught his breath short, but not 
a plank started, not a rope was carried away, not a shot 
screamed over him. Amazed to find himself standing, he 
watched the smoke travel to leeward over the rainy sea hiding 
the galley. It passed. Where was the galley ? Gone ! but 
; a stave or two was floating. What had happened ? The 
I tall two-decker was lying- to, was lowering boats. 

| “ She’s British after all ! ’’ he whispered, governing the 

break in his voice, and heard the crew, after a moment of 
breathless incredulity, rush aft to his assistance. 

“ What’s that ? *’ asked Furley, emerging from a spasm of 
| agony mutely endured. “Sunk ? — by the Rock guns ? Are 
we that close in ? Poor souls, may the Lord forgive ’em. . . . 
I dew. Yes, thankye, but ’twill spile thy coat ’’ — he let Chis- 
holm prop his shoulders— “ I be shot through ; keel an’ 
garboard strake.’’ A dozen garments were at his disposal, 
he was looking into the faces of sorrowing shipmates. “ ‘ The 
pains of death gat hold upon me ,’ ’’ he muttered as the sweat 
broke upon corrugated brows and the ruined bulk of the great 
frame settled lower upon its uneasy couch. The eyelids 
rose, the lips parted, the glazing eyes turned towards the corpse 
of Sweetapple which men were covering with a blanket. 
Silent and grand he lay, the last of the Anointers of the Chil- 
terns, that strange survival of seed dropped by some hunted 
Lollard. New centuries may bring novel formularies, but 
shall hardly restore us this. Austere and noble he lay, all 
that had seemed absurd, and trivial, and obscure harmonised 
and made reverend by death. 

“ He bin and got the start o’ me. ‘ God bless him,’ I’d 
say if ’tweren’t prayin’ for the dead. . . . But he ain’t cold 
yit ; and anyway, he got it a-helpin’ o’ me, so I’ll risk it. 
Bos’n . . . Sammle . . . take over the ship, will thee ? . . . 
Hands forrard ! Stand by. 

“ Friend Chis’s’m, hear the Word o’ the Lord to thee. Thee 
be a-wastin’ o’ thy time. There be a damsight tew much 
pride about thee, saith the Lord. . . . There’s a hangin’ 
back ; and it tetches that there young gal o’ ourn, Miss 
Susan. . . . Make up tew har, bor. . . quick-sticks, no 
tifflin’ ! She warnts thee ; I kin sorter see it now. Up thee 
gits and gives me thy davy. D'thee hear ? ” 

Chisholm did hear, though the voice was low and painfully 
produced. The lad’s jaw set, his eye fixed. This appeal 
touched his pride, the enormous, silent pride of the self-con- 
tained, poor man. But the dying hero would take no denial. 

“ Will ye ? . . . won't ye ? . . . doan't kip a-thinkin’ on 
yerself, think about har ! . . . Yew’ll make up tew har now , 
right orf ? — aye ? ” he paused expectant. 


392 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


“ I wull, sae help me Cot ! ” said Chisholm, the oath drawn 
from him as by physical torture. 

Both men kept silent for a while, oblivious of the proximity 
of the man who had taken over the tiller, and of the boy Titus, 
who knelt weeping dumbly, supporting the head of his dying 
friend. (“ Let’m be,” Furley had bidden when the acting 
master had ordered the child forward.) 

“ Git sail off of her,” he muttered, unaware that this had 
been already done. The senses were dimming fast. “ Wha’s 
that ? ” he whispered huskily. It was the batteries along the 
curtain cheering the cattle-ship as she brought up off the 
Arsenal ; lean, yellow men were in the embrasures and on the 
parapets, hurrahing a welcome to British provender and to 
the men who had brought it at risk of life and limb, knowing 
nothing of what lay behind those shot-pitted stern-works. 

The dying man listened and understood ; the fast-ebbing 
blood ran warmly for a moment about that stout old heart. 

" Good chaps, they shall ha’ their beef ! . . . And now, 
Lord, what wait I for ? — My hope is in Thee. . . . Forrard, 

there ! Make ready to anchor ! — Let go ! ” and, as his 

lips formed the syllables, the last which they were to utter, 
Thomas Furley, Captain under God of the brig Mary of 
Yarmouth, and sometime master gunner in the service of 
the Honourable East India Company, came in from his last 
voyage. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE LAST 

The yard, garden, or, to give its own name, the patio of the 
little Spanish house in Prince Frederic Street went clambering 
away up the Rock in a series of ramps quarried out of the 
limestone. From terrace number one you looked into the 
first floor windows through a trellis overrun with major peri- 
winkle and Provence rose. Terrace number two was level 
with the eaves of the house, whilst from the one above it 
you got a glimpse of shipping beyond the roofs below ; and it 
was upon this platform, shaded by a pergola, darkened and 
cooled by the broad leaves of a citron, that Justin was sitting 
to take the air upon the afternoon of the day following the 
return of the Mary of Yarmouth. 

Three months had slipped away, autumn had come, but the 
day was oppressively close, hot with the African heat of 
southern Spain, tempered by the proximity of the ocean. 
The breeze from off the Atlantic had died away ; the rain had 
stopped, but a warm, steamy mist travelled low over sea and 
land, constantly absorbed by the dry soil, and constantly 
renewed from the sea, through which the upper ranges of the 
Rock jutted into scorching sunshine. The heat up there was 
terrible, men at Willis’s almost fainted as they stood. The 
sergeant at Rock-gun Battery, who ordinarily could over- 
look the Spanish lines, so that not a picket was set without 
his knowledge, could see nought but the level bank of white 
cloud three hundred feet below him, whilst the men at the 
Signal Station might as well have been in the cool depths of 
St. Michael’s Cavern for all they could report. 

Nor were the enemy in better case. For ought the besiegers 
knew, a British convoy might be rounding Cabrita Point 
with supplies for the hard-pressed garrison. 

Heat, inaction, suspense, and not a stroke struck by either 
side ! Guess what chagrins, what heart-eatings and vile 
tempers did these conditions engender among hot-blooded, 
brave men thirsting for glory. Many nails were bitten short. 


393 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


394 

but none nearer to the quick than those of General Mendoza, 
captain-general of the Spanish army of observation. 

The Rock had been wrenched from the hold of Spain some 
seventy years before ; the wound was yet raw, and Mendoza, \ 
like every man of his race then and since, yearned to restore 
this lost jewel to his master’s crown ; a jewel which he felt 
to the marrow of his bones had been won by a fluke and re- 
tained by fraud. (Respect the point of view, O my country- 
men ! Would it not have been yours if, by the chances of 
European politics, Dover had been occupied by the Germans 
in 1832, acting as the agents of a reactionary coalition, and 
stuck to ever since, in spite of Royal promises of restitution 
which an insolent Reichstag refused to ratify ? Read English 
for German and House of Commons for Reichstag, and you 
have the situation in a nutshell.) 

It could be done by hard fighting. How else ? And was 
he not there to fight ? Yet, for want of orders he must bite 
his fingers, watching the British lines being strengthened day 
by day. 

Men he asked for, and more men. Slowly they arrived, so 
slowly ! For his royal master having issued his ultimatum 
in volume form, was making war by monthly numbers. Worse ; 
private advices apprised Mendoza that he was to be super- 
seded ; that the long-promised reinforcements would be 
entrusted to some titled grandee of the first class, and the 
memorable, the final blow would be struck by another. 

By another ! The renown that he coveted, the prize that 
he yearned to clutch, were never to be his ; his pains and 
preparations must go for worse than naught, would swell the 
reputation of a rival, a Court favourite, some silken warrior 
who had never set a squadron in the field, nor the division 
of a battle knew more than a spinster ! Neither were especial 
inducements wanting. His spies and British deserters agreed 
that one of the German regiments was disloyal. It would 
throw down its arms at a summons. Its position was noted. 

What does your full-blooded, jealous commander do under 
such circumstances ? 

And still the hot, white October mist lay thick across the 
isthmus. 


And on that very afternoon our friend the Colonel, now 
in the last days of an impatient convalescence, was holding 
his little court beneath the citron pergola. The place was 
quiet and most private, for of the storerooms which enclosed 
both sides of the patio, the summer-house at the top of the 
last terrace and the little dwelling-house at the bottom, every 


THE LAST 


395 

room opened inward, and those which were not stuffed with 
provision and wood for the siege were occupied by the three 
women and their maid. 

The officers’ mess of the 12th had asked leave to tender 
1 personal congratulations to the new commandant upon his 
j completed recovery and, incidentally, to make the acquain- 
{ tance of Mrs. Hollinghurst the bride-elect. 

Not to be burdensome, they would come two at a time. 

Their ex-Lieut. -Colonel (Brigadier-General now), the gallant 
Trigge, led the way, accompanied by Major Tulkinghorne, 

! Justin’s late colleague and present subordinate. 

The men were antithetics ; the Brigadier stout, short, 
abrupt, dogmatically orthodox, discharging pious platitudes 
at suitable intervals, sitting his chair with the solid rotundity 
■ and squat erectness with which a cedar-cone sits its branch. 
His colleague was long in person, limp in posture, and prone 
to the enunciation of futile profanities in an exhausted under- 
tone ; a bore who believed himself a philosopher. 

But, behind the ostensible reasons for the call, a secret 
and reasonable curiosity possessed the minds of both. 

This Justin, this new-comer, was an enigma alike to the 
zealot and the rationalist. At his first joining, the man’s 
| prim reticence had conveyed an impression of inadequacy 
which his adroit courage on the occasion of the drunken mess- 
waiter’s outbreak had only partially dissipated — so hardy a 
growth is first prejudice when substantiated by a deceptively 
I dapper exterior. 

Yet week by week the aura of fine character which environed 
! the man had radiated influence. The plain preference of His 
‘ Excellency had assisted, a preference to which the Sovereign 
had set his august seal. 

Then, after a week of tragic eclipse, the Colonel had emerged 
effulgent, scintillating, a monument of resolution and endur- 
ance. 

How had he achieved it ? The feat had been discussed at 
all the messes ; every officer in the garrison had his theory ; 
the two callers had theirs. 

! “ Overruling Providence : there’s no other name for it, 

sir ! ” remarked Trigge, with a challenging side-glance at his 
comrade. “ Here is Tulkinghorne going to call it something 
else — wants to know what ye were thinking about all that 
week ; what kept ye up, and so on. Simplest thing in the 
world, I say — Will of the Almighty. Once admit that, and 
there ye are ” — a second glance. “ Look at me, now ! Thirty- 
five years ago come Good Friday I was two steps up the first 
ladder we fixed against the west epaulement of Schatzheim. 
Little Tucker, a fellow sub, a brave man, sir, but jealous, 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


396 

shouldered me off my foothold in the abruptest manner 
(most rudely, I must say) and took my place. But see 
what followed. Next moment a ball passed through his brain — 
his head, sir, exactly where mine had been the moment before. i 
And yet”— darting another glance at Tulkinghorne— t 

“there are some who will say there is no such thing as an 1 

Over-ruling Providence.” 

The gallant Trigge, having discharged his shot, glanced 
around him triumphantly. 

Tulkinghorne, after a pause of sufficient duration to 
beguile his comrade into a premature conceit of victory, 
uncrossed a pair of thin legs and sighed. 

“ Stwike me blind, General, but I’m sawy, vewy sawy, not 
to agwee with ye. ’Tis this way — curse me ! how shall I 
put it ? Heah, Justin, ye shall put it faw me. Ye know what 
I’m dwivin’ at; we always did think alike.” 

But their host lifted deprecating hands, and the bore of the 
mess maundered on, feeling his way to his meaning unhelped. 

“ ’Tis like this. Twigge is a Chwistian — glories in it.” 

“ I do, sir,” assented the General, prompt as a shot. 

“ I ain’t,” drawled the other. “ But then, I’m none of your 
Voltaireans. I’m not for Berkeley ; I’m not for Hume. 

No ; I ain’t a what-ye-may-call-’em, and I’m not a thingummy. 
I’m just for Luck. We’ve each of us got to die once, but 
how and when is fixed ” 

“ There I’m with ye, sir. Predestination,” broke in Trigge, 
but Tulkinghorne held the floor. 

“ J ust so. We all see alike. Sensible men all same weligion, 
ye know. Well now, Justin and myself will die in our beds, 
that’s plain. The General, too, vewy likely — most likely,” 
for the little warrior was purpling. “ In fact, if ’twas a mattah 
faw a wagah I’d back him to dwah his last bweath between 
a payah of sheets. ... As for ye, Colonel, nothin’ can kill 
ye. Lead is no good to ye. . . . Niggahs and Fwench have 
been twyin’ faw twenty yeahs. Poor Boyle twied, yet, heah 
ye are ! . . . I am made same way. Not superstitious, ye 
know ; devil a bit ! No, there’s nothin’ of that sort about me. 
But, all the same, while I cawwy an aggery bead in my 
snuff-box ’ * 

“ Stuff ! ” interposed Trigge hotly. 

“ — But then,” continued the man who had emancipated 
himself from every form of superstition, “ with the finest ' 
luck in the world in action, I’m the unluckiest devil livin’ 
at cards ; yes, ’tis all taken out of me at whist.” 

“ Then, why play ? ” asked Justin. 

“ What a qwestion ! But, theah again, I am on the mend. 

. . . When the Jews were sent packin’ one of ’em sold me a 


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signet-wing monstwous cheap— he had wefused better bids 
fwom the men in the Hardenbergs earlier. ’Twas poor Von 
Toppler’s — see the hands and dice ? — the blazon of his house ? ” 
He displayed the bezel. “ Lucky at play, all of ’em (so they 
tell me). He dealt himself a hand of thirteen twumps the 
night befoah he went out with Stedman of ours. Yaas, I 
wathah flattah myself I’ve changed my luck.” 

Justin listened with a well-bred show of interest, but 
Trigge, whose under-breath comments were growingly audible, 
boiled over with a “ Blanked heathenism ! ” and, arising 
impetuously, took his leave. The Major got to his feet more 
slowly : there was a note of disappointment in the voices of 
both : they declined more wine. 

At the top of the flight of steps they paused. “ Seven 
mortal days ! ” said the Brigadier, holding his host’s hand, 
and almost unconsciously continuing some unspoken soliloquy. 

“ A h — 1 of a time,” remarked Tulkinghorne. “ What the 
doose were ye thinkin’ about all the while ? Ye must have 
been thinkin’ of somethin’. What kept ye goin’ ? Ye know 
what I mean.” 

“ He put his trust in the Almighty,” asserted Trigge. 

“ He backed his luck,” said the Major. 

Justin glanced from one to the other and divined that the 
men had discussed him elsewhere. The hospitality of his 
mien suffered no eclipse, but he smilingly withdrew within 
his defences and the drawbridge rose. (“My secret is my 
own.”) 

“ I suppose I was thirsty . . . yes . . . there were days 
when I could have done with a little something to drink,” 
he smiled. “ Want of food did not trouble me as much as 
ye’d suppose . . . but the cramps — ! ” he smiled wistfully 
again, recent additions to the crowsfeet puckering, observant 
eyes which perceived that these importunate acquaintances 
were not concerned with physical experiences. “ Oh, what 
kept me up ? what gave me warrant for holding out ? 
Let me see. Shall we say a feeling that there was some work 
left in me, and a few things that needed doing ? ” 

The visitors took their leave, passing in the patio Sue, who 
had attended the seaman’s funeral escorted by Chisholm. 
The girl, red-eyed and pensive, turned aside to her room. 
The youth escorted the callers to the street door and returned 
to Colonel Justin upon the upper terrace, and a grave and 
preoccupied youth was he. 

“ A military funeral ? The Governor ordered it ? I ought 
to have been present. Did all go well ? ” 

“ ’Twass fine, sir. The strangest ceremony. When the 
chaplain wass through, the Mary's company conduckit their 


398 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


ain sairvice. There’s some micht lichtly it for mummery ; 
but I ken them weel. To see the dour, clenched een o’ them, 
the knit broos ! And to hear the twa-three prayers ; the 
gaspingest prayers ye ever listened till, rippit clean frae | 
the hert ! Some grat. Boy Titus grat awfu’. Yet the auld 
skipper wass something stern wi’ the laddie.” 

“ Good fellows — God rest their souls ! ” muttered Justin, ; 
capping as he breathed his prayer. “And Susan was there, 
so ? ” 

“ Ay, sir, juist sae, in her Quaker claes. She wad wear 
naething but what Maister Furley had brocht aboard for her 
at her sailing. Let them follow the mode that are modish : 
she went in her saft, sea-gray frock and yon white shawlie, 
neckercher thing, and, on ma sawl, Colonel, masel’, that 
walked beside her, thocht ilka meenut she wad rise and flee j 
awa — an angel, sir ! And, Lord, hoo she grat ! The big 
tears wass rinning doun her bonnie cheeks. I felt — I felt ” 

“You felt ? ” inquired the Colonel quietly, after an 
interval, during which the youth failed to complete his sentence. 

“ Sir, I am a puir man, as ye ken vara weel.” 

I C“ There is nothing new in that, John. I am waiting ” 

Colonel, if it wass not that I took ma aith tae good Maister 
Furley as he lay deein’ that I wad dae it (he made me tak’ 
it) ” 

“ Yes, John ■’* 

“ Sir, I am nae adventurer, nor a fortune-hunter, nor ” 

“ You and I know that, John. What news have ye for me, 
my boy ? ” 

“ Oh, Colonel, Colonel ! I luve her ; ay, the vara moulds 
she sets her little fit upo’ — I canna help it ! ” The poor lad 
was almost sobbing, so terrible was the contest of duty and 
love with the pride that possessed him. 

“ And why, in God’s name, John, should ye wish ‘ to help 
it ’ ? Fetch Sue.” 

The lad leaped to his feet, but it seemed there was no 
need for him to stir. Sue, light-footed, shading her head 
with a white kerchief from the heat which seemed to thrid 
the mist, was tripping up the rock-hewn steps of the lower 
terrace. Behind her came more slowly, and talking as he 
came, a great, gaunt, square-shouldered elder, whose face, 
hidden by the peak of the cap he wore, seemed set in a bush 
of white hair. The man took good heed to his footing, bending 
over his feet and tapping the rock with a mighty hand-staff 
of carven teak; his gruff voice preceded him. 

“ Tell him an auld frien’ o’ his, ma’am. Ian Chisholm o* 
the Ca Bartolome. He’ll ken, nae fear ! Ou, ay, I am 
followin’ ye.” 


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399 


The Colonel started and half arose. “Is it possible ? ” 
Sue, looking more brilliantly well, and, despite recent grief 
for a lost friend, happier than we have ever known her, ap- 
proached, announcing the visitor. 

“ A gentleman to see you, Colonel, from Madras.” 

She stood aside, smiling, whilst Justin, with a quick, joyous 
laugh, almost dragged his old friend up the last two steps by 
both hands. Each man pelted his comrade with questions ; 
both laughed loudly, absurdly ; it was boyish, it was delight- 
ful — to themselves. 

To young Chisholm it was merely a deplorably inopportune 
interruption. His clouded face caught Sue’s eye, she smiled 
meaningly ; was it a challenge ? She had been softly happy 
that day, its melancholy business notwithstanding. Whilst 
weeping beside the grave she had felt an inner current of joy 
running strongly within for that Another was at her side: 
Another, who had inexplicably held aloof of late. He had 
said nothing yet, but there was a something in his manner 
which told her of what was coming. She divined his trouble ; 
and had not Dray, her dear old Dray, hinted at his friend’s 
scruples ? 

It was a golden moment all round. The woman rose to the 
height of the occasion, and the lad, slow in the uptake though 
he might be, saw his opportunity clear and near, and seized it. 

The lovers faded off the scene, sauntering down the Rock 
steps in the direction of the house, admiring this patch of 
periwinkle and that spray of rose. Nor, think you, was it 
in the hearts of Mrs. Lamb or of Julia to spoil sport. They 
effaced themselves ; it might have been a house of the dead 
when the pair of youngsters crossed its threshold. This small 
sitting-room and that cool, dusk parlour were open, empty, and 
fully at their service. 

“ Some friend of his Indian days,” murmured the girl, and 
had almost given the name, but the man was impatient to be 
getting to their own matters. “A Scotsman, I jalouse; there 
sis mony o’ my fowk in the East. He maun ha’e come 
by that fule Indiaman wha held her fire sae lang. They 
say their forward battery wass buried in cargo, and they 
could only trust their gunners at point-blank range — the 
mair shame till them ! Their lubberliness cost guid men’s 
lives ! ” 

The man was talking against time. Nor would the woman 
help him out by a casual “ True, indeed : yes ! ” When he 
had done scolding the bad sea-manners of the ship to whose 
belated intervention he probably owed his life, a silence fell 
between them. 

“ Susan,” he groaned at length, “ what maun I say ? I 


400 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


wasna a maitch for ye when ye wass as puir as maser, and the : 
noo that ye are a gran’ leddy ” 

'‘Not another word, John! of that sort, I mean,” she 
cried in a heat of indignation ; but the man persisted, so bitter 
was his pride. 

“ But, ’tis Cot’s truth ! — I ” But he must stop, for a 

soft hand was laid over his mouth. He kissed it and threw 
up his chin, striving for speech. “ Aweel, then, there’s 
naething I can say but j uist the ordinar’ ‘ Lassie, I luve 
ye ! ’” 

“ And what more than that did I want to hear, John ? ” 
She was weeping the happiest tears ; he watched her in a 
mighty awe. Was it done, then ? and himself crowned ? her 
accepted lover ? She spoke again. “ Oh, to think — to think 
of it ! I believe I have been loving you all the time ; yes, 
from the first day, John ! You remember the inn at St. 
Albans (was it not ?) where ye set a stool for my feet ? And 
that night under the lamp by Charing Cross ? And that 
bitter cold day in the Park ? I must have dropped and died 
before night but for your guinea, John.” 

There, then, these two honest young hearts sate in a wonder- 
ful new world of their own creation, a private Eden Bower, 
and in their innocence imagined that not a living soul save 
themselves knew ought of their loves, whereas that motherly 
and much-experienced creature, Mrs. Lamb, and Julia, a 
betrothed woman herself of three months’ standing, were 
hugging one another overhead in pure joy and sympathy. 
Such are the ways of women. 

Nay, Painter, the staid and self-respecting Painter, was in 
the secret, and had gone so far as to communicate her version 
of the facts to Private Noakes, the Colonel’s batman, or 
bearer, as he usually called him from long habit ; a tall infantry- 
man of an extreme cleanliness and taciturnity, who still 
followed his master from house to house like a big dog, albeit 
no longer permitted to offer him the support of his arm. 

Meanwhile the two old friends beneath the citron pergola 
were enjoying a glorious crack: Presidency news for the 
most part, the fall of Fletcher, the amazing success of Rumbold 
and Stuart. The old Scot was the chief speaker. 

“ Hoo I fand ye ? Man, Justin, ye’re o’er- modest ! Why, 
ilka ither man on the Rock iss crackin’ o’ ye ; the adveentures 
o’ Colonel Justin are the talk o’ the hale garrison. Nayterally, 

I thocht the name soonded fameeliar, and cam’ a step or twa 
oot o’ ma way tae see if it wass na ma auld frien’. Man, 
ye’ve had an awfu’ time on’t. For that budmash, the ither — 
he’s deid ; I’ll say na mair ! But, praise the Lor’rd, ye’re 


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luiking juist fine yersel’. And, did ye find yer wards, they 
[ Travis bairnies ? 11 

“ No, indeed, that I did not ; but after I had run against 
them blindfold twice or thrice, Heaven grew weary of my 
stupidity and pushed them both into my hands. Small credit 
to me, old friend. I am a fool ; there’s no other word for it ! ” 
“ I wad like fine to belt the chiel thot wad pit thot wor’rd 

I upo’ ye ! Though to gae till yer auld enemy’s bungalow un- 
airmed as ye did, wass a fule’s errand, and I’ll say it, gin I 
wass a deein’ man ! ” chuckled the ancient Scot, shaking his 
teak walking-stick. “ Aha ! an’ ye still cairry th’ auld mull ! ’* 
He took a copious pinch from the ewe’s horn, once his own. 
“ An’ ha’e ye still that wee dirkie o’ mine, the skene dhu ? Ye 
have yet to find a man o’ ma name, I doot.” 

The Colonel sat up laughing, and smote his thigh. “ Your 
name — your name!” He laughed again. “Indeed, I am 
ulukabatcha, the very son of an owl. Why, man, the young 
gentleman who was with me when ye came up those steps 
half an hour since is a Chisholm, but whether of your stock 
or not, who knows ? I have the knife somewhere, but had 
i forgot it. Let us ask the fellow what he knows of his family.” 
So Eden Bower was invaded all too soon for the lovers ; 
there were steps upon the stones of the patio, and a deep- 
jj toned northern voice in converse with the Colonel. 

“ of Sutherland, ye say ? — No of Shinside ? ’Tis barely 

I po-sible.” 

“ John, my boy, we want ye.” It was the Colonel speak- 
! ing. The Ensign, holding Sue’s hand in the first bliss of 
betrothal, released it and came forth. The great white- 
headed stranger faced him with an exploring eye, which the 
lad met with the reserved, unsmiling courtesy of a man of a 
fighting race. 

“ Mister Chisholm, your sairvant, sir ! ” said the visitor 
uncovering, and not waiting for his host’s introduction, “ I 
I haf the honour to bear your name, sir, a name something by- 
ordinar ; it iss no’ ilka day that a man shall be meeting wi’ a 
Chisholm, even gin he live north of the hielan’ line. We are 
1 a sma’ clan, and sud be acquent. I, maseP, am of the Chis- 
holms of Kinloch Shin ; and by the Lor'rd that made us baith, 
sae’s yersel ’ / ” The laborious politeness of the preamble 
ended in a breathless rush of words, as the old man strode 
forward and caught the astonished youth by the shoulders. 
“ Dinna tell me,” he cried, “ ’Tis ma brither’s face, his 
neb, his mou, his een. I kent ye by yer smile ! Lauch again 
— aye, again ! Man, we are kin, or the tefile iss in it ! Hoo is 
Munro ? Hoo iss Alastair and Tonal Beg ? Hoo iss Hector ? 
Wha hass Overskaig, and wha hass the wee housie in Corrie 

26 


402 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


Kinloch ? Ah, canna ye spik, mon ? Dinna ye ken that 
aw’m deein’ for news o’ ma auld hame ? ” 

The excitement of the old man, the tremble in his voice, 
was electric. The lad, who had stood close-lipped and wonder- 
ing whilst the names of long-dead great-uncles were tossed 
at him (two in Canada, and one beneath the sods of Culloden), 
flushed and sparkled at the place-names of his boyhood. 
Both men burst into a torrent of simultaneous Gaelic, the elder 
holding the younger by the elbows and rocking him backward 
and forward as he addressed him in the energies of recognition. 

“ Major, ma frien’ (Colonel, a wad say), and you leddies,” 
he cried, reverting to the English and including the circle 
of listeners, whom the strength of his joy had drawn to the 
spot, “ this iss a great day for me. I haf the wor’rd of my 
people efter thretty-five years. This iss ta oie o’ ma brither 
Hector, our chief. (Iss he na chief the day, Ian ?) Aye, chief 
o’ ta Chisholm. Hector will be wearin’ ta three eggle’s 
feathers at Overskaig — to think on’t ! ” Another burst of 
the Gaelic. 

He paused at last, the great white bush of beard quivering 
with joyful emotion, and in the moment of silence that followed 
a clap of thunder rattled, and every window shook and every 
wall vibrated. 

Justin, still smiling, turned to Julia without haste or dis- 
composure, his old brisk brightness mellowed by some touch 
of additional gentleness. 

“You ladies will excuse us men for a while. My old friend 
Mr. Chisholm, whom I have not yet had the pleasure of 
formally presenting to you, Julia (my affianced wife, Chisholm), 
will be taking a little walk with J ohn. By their leave I go 
with them.’’ 

“ Not many steps, Wade, with a storm brewing. You have 
no cloak, my love. What, again ! — a very long peal ! How 
it shakes the glass ! Did any of you see the flash ? Why 
take your sword, dear ? it only tires you. (There it goes 
again ! Oh-h-h !) Why not keep under shelter until it be 
over ? ” 

The men had reached the street ; they turned, smiling upon 
the ladies, still uncovered. 

“ I cannot see which way the clouds move,” said Julia, 
peering up from under her hand. “ It is thick, but not dark. 
Don’t take him far from shelter, John ; something will be 
falling, and the storms on the Rock are heavy while they 
last.” 

Then came a hurtling above the roofs, something struck ; 
there was the rumble of falling stonework and a cloud of white 
dust, and again and again the thunder rolled and something 



THE LAST 


403 


pitched into the soft ploughed-up earth of the narrow street, a 
matter of twenty yards away. Far off they heard a drum 
beat and bugles woke and called. 

The women’s mouths and eyes rounded with comprehension. 
It was one of those appalling moments, inevitable, endless, 
which must surely leave its scar upon the brain. Sue looked 
upon J ohn, but as quickly turned her head. 

Julia sprang to the side of Justin, and clung there, mutely 
| agonising. He gently strove to disengage her hands, but 
she refixed them as fast. The clutch grew convulsive. Again 
the bugles called, yet Justin, in his extremity, possessed him- 
self in smiling patience. There would be time enough for 
everything, even for this. 

“ My love will be brave for her soldier’s sake,” he murmured. 
“ She would not have him stay with her now. He could not 
love ye so well, dear, if he did not love his duty better ! ” 

Julia Hollinghurst was no heroine, being merely a piece of 
loving womanhood, she could not, upon the point of so sudden 
an emergency, rise to the height of the man of her heart. Her 
grasp tightened. Still smiling gravely, the Colonel turned to 
Sue (Mrs. Lamb was helplessly exclamatory, and Painter’s 
head under her apron). It was the girl who intervened, white 
to the lips herself, and not daring to meet the eye of her lover, 
she laid her cold hands over the rigid fingers of her friend. At 
her touch, and at the infection of her silent courage, the finer 
nature of the other reasserted itself. 

“ Wade, forgive me ! I will be worthy of you, but Oh ! 

No ! I will not faint ! ” Her hand pressed her side. 

“ Get her in. . . . Get her to work ... to use her hands. 
Lint, bandages ; you have linen ? ” 

Susan nodded dumbly and almost bore her friend into the 
house, and again through the thick air came the clear, cruel, 
inhuman bugles. 

The men turned their faces towards the lines. “ May I 
I offer ye ma air’rm, Colonel ? ” asked young Chisholm. 

“ Ye may, my boy; ’tis no time to stand upon punctilios. 
I shall want all my breath and both my legs this afternoon. 

1 Here comes the first enemy. Right about face, doctor, and 
follow us to the front. Not a word, sir. Ye have done your 
duty in protesting : mine takes me to my regiment, where I 
fancy we shall both of us be wanted.” 

Whilst speaking he was pressing on, a Chisholm upon either 
side of him. “ Old friend, we part here : I must not take you 
under fire.” 

“ Dinna talk tae me, Justin; I’m for the M’Leods wi’ my 
clansman here.” As he spoke there came flying steps behind 
them, and Susan’s hand was upon her lover’s arm. 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


404 

“ John, don’t look at me, don’t speak ; take this with ye, 
my love. . . . Oh, my love ! ” She unwound a black riband 
from her hair whilst speaking, laid it in his hand, and would 
have gone as she had come, but the lad, white about the 
nostrils, hard bright eyes in a set face, caught and kissed her 
with never a word. Susan shook the thick hair over her eyes 
and sped back to the house. 

“ Ta caillach ! Man, John, ye haf chosen the richt wife for 
a Chisholm ! ” muttered the old Highlandman as the youth 
dropped a pace behind. 

“ Auld frien’, a wor’rd i’ yer lug : yon lad is ? ” 

“ One of the best — the very best. I owe my life to him.” 

“ An’ whit way hass he cairrit himsel’ under fire ? ” 

“ That he will show to-day, but I’ve no doubts,” replied 
Justin, knowing nothing of ship experiences of which John 
had not- spoken. 

“ And the lassie ? ” persisted old Chisholm. 

“ A noble creature — all her mother. She loves him. But 
she’s rich. ’Tis her share in that cursed Bexwara loot that has 
kept them apart until to-day. John is bitter proud.” 

“ That is ta bluid. ... A toom sporran ’tis masel’ can mak’ 
richt. . . . Wheesht ! ** The lad was agin at Justin’s elbow. 


The guns had ceased, for the artillerymen could see nothing, 
and the heads of the storming columns would be well upon 
their ways. Battle was indeed already joined, the rattle of 
musketry was incessant, now at Forbes’s Barrier, now at the 
Land Port, which the laddermen were to attack, for it was 
escalade or nothing. 

Mendoza, laying his plans for a night assault, had been 
tempted by the fog to anticipate. With infinite precaution 
as to silence, he had brought every available man to the 
outpost line and had flung them against the hitherto im- 
pregnable defences of the North Front, trusting to luck and 
to the singular weather which had permitted him to order 
his battle unseen by the English lookouts, and which he hoped 
would allow him to cross the zone of fire unscathed, and give 
him all the advantages of a surprise. 

One work alone he spared, the Queen's Lines, which deserters 
informed him were held by the Hardenbergs, who would 
exchange sides when summoned by a regiment of Catholic 
Badeners in Spanish pay. 

The scheme was a bold one, for anything in the nature of 
manoeuvring is impossible upon a narrow isthmus, ankle-deep 
in sand and swept by a powerful artillery. What the Spanish 


THE LAST 


405 

Commander could do he did, and did according to rule. He 
would have three columns of attack, right, centre, and left, of 
which the last, whilst the two others were well engaged, and 
the hands of the enemy full, was to enter the defences by leave 
of the disaffected Hanoverians, take the defenders of the British 
positions in the rear, and throw open the Land Port gate to 
Spain. 

The plan was well conceived — such things have succeeded, 
and this might. But the fog which justified the enterprise 
ruined its execution. 

The Walloon officer who led the forlorn hope of laddermen 
had the pitiful luck to drop and tread upon his compass whilst 
clearing the glacis of Fort San Philip, after which mishap he 
steered by guess, and bearing too far to his left (to avoid the 
western beach), found himself crossing the front of the 
Badeners as they issued from the barrier at the head of the 
Boyau in the middle of the Spanish position. There was a 
hasty challenge in German and an unintelligible reply in 
French, a musket went off, and all the advantages of surprise 
were lost. 

Then the guns along the Spanish lines opened ; and being 
trained high to avoid demoralising the stormers, did the 
English works no manner of harm, whilst plumping round 
shot into the Alameda, two miles away, and oversetting a 
chimney in Prince Frederic Street. 

Such are the chances of war. 

Meanwhile a Catalan regiment, debouching from Fort Santa 
Barbara on the extreme Spanish left, crossed the neutral 
ground at the double, fell upon the picket at Forbes’s Barrier 
and carried it without firing a shot. The men holding the 
post threw down their arms, but were bayoneted, shrieking 
unintelligible protests. They were Hardenbergs, whom the 
Governor, ignorant of the intended treachery, had posted 
there in the course of the morning, in relief of De la Motte’s 
regiment. 

The butchery of these unlucky traitors being witnessed 
by their fellows in the Queen’s Lines above and to the right, 
filled them with fury ; cursing the breakers of the pact, they 
opened fire upon the Catalans, who, undismayed, and ex- 
pectant of nothing less, scaled the scarp in their grass sandals 
and broke in over the parapet with extraordinary gallantry. 
Here the Germans, being of two parties, some initiated, but 
daunted by the fate of the picket, others loyal but ill-led, 
gave way and were breaking, when down upon the victors 
poured the left wing of the 12th from the Prince’s Lines 
above. The gorge of the covered way by which they came 
to tile rescue of their old enemies was constricted, and it was 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


406 

here that the major in command and two captains fell whilst 
deploying their men. (Yes, Tulkinghorne had changed his 
luck.) It was there too that Travis, his guns at Europa 
Point left to the care of artillerymen, struck in for his regiment 
and made and took his mark. Hurt in three places, he re- 
formed his men and led them again and again to the attack. 

By what means, ask you ? remembering that this was a 
studious youth in his first engagement. Not, be sure, by 
impassioned appeal to a glorious British Liberty (which no 
poor man then enjoyed), or to memories of wife and child 
(whom many of his followers had enlisted to escape). No, 
for the Comic Spirit willed otherwise. ..." Twelfth ! ” 
bawled our youngster, at his wits’ end for a sanction for 
valour which he knew must be awaiting the right word — 
“ Twelfth — will you, who eat beef, turn tail to these (un- 
mentionables) who suck oranges ? ” 

And lo, the right chord had been touched, the gallant 
Twelfth responded with its ancient ardour, and those intrusive 
Catalans were shifted, and a name made. 

But the bicker was of the bitterest, for the Badeners, having 
apologised and disentangled themselves from the Walloons, 
were pouring up the glacis, and the Hanoverians and English, 
being clubbed and losing their formations, gave ground, 
fighting in groups under the leadership of any high-spirited 
and conspicuous officer or man of either race, and using the 
butt from preference lest their bullets should find a friend. 
To most of the privates and subalterns it was a first battle, 
a trying experience for young troops ; an Inkerman ante- 
dated by three quarters of a century. But England had 
there a man who was no young soldier, to whom no turn of 
the game came amiss, and whose bright, smiling composure 
no chance or change of the face of battle could disturb. Colonel 
Wade Justin, staking everything upon one brilliant stroke, 
left his lines above to the honour of a single company, and, 
leading his right wing to the lower works, broke fiercely in 
upon the right of the victorious Badeners, checking their 
attack. Here the fighting was very close and desperate, 
for as the combatants were of three races, and German words 
of command sounded upon both sides, no quarter was given. 
The original fog was thickened by smoke ; none could tell how 
the matter was going, not Eliott with his reserves beneath the 
Castle, nor Justin cheerfully and politely directing the counter- 
attack in the smoke below. 'Twas a soldier’s battle ; the 
guns were mute since the opening cannonade. Artillerymen 
whose pieces could not be sufficiently depressed to meet the 
rush of the stormers replied with round-shot to the hand- 
grenades, or struck with the rammer, 


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407 


Then, who knows when, or for what reason ? the attack 
weakened. The remains of the Walloon storming-party drew 
off by the beach ; they had never been menacing ; the cause- 
way was impassable, and the inundation had not been crossed. 
The Scots defending the Land Port sallied, led by Lieut. -Col. 
Mackenzie, and, taking the Spanish centre in flank, completed 
the discomfiture begun by Justin. In twenty minutes the 
affair was over so far as danger to England’s fortress was 
concerned, but the Highlanders, getting out of hand, pushed 
the counter-stroke to extremes and drove mixed crowds of 
Badeners, Walloons, and Catalans upon their Spanish 
supports, until the whole mass fell back across the 
isthmus as far as the eastern beach, where, in the neighbour- 
hood of the Devil’s Tower, a fierce little battle was fought 
and many wounds taken and given, and some prisoners left 
in Scottish hands. 

Is this clear ? I can hardly hope to make it so ; it was 
very far from clear to the men engaged ; nor did any two 
reports subsequently agree. Precisely what the Highlanders 
were doing (beyond getting a belly-full of “ ta fechting ”) 
they neither knew nor cared. Over that square half-mile of 
sand men of six races, and of at least as many mutually un- 
intelligible tongues, fought in the hot obscurity of an autumn 
sea-fog, whilst bugles from both sides vainly sounded the 
recall, and watchers from the upper lines looked down into 
a sea of white, sunlit, ever-shifting mist, constantly thinning, 
constantly renewed, and saw nothing of the fight below, the 
sounds of which came up to them sharp and clear. 

Yes, the bugles were blown but in vain, as it seemed. These 
clansmen were young soldiers with a tradition of their own 
as to how a matter of this kind should be managed. It was 
but a little more than thirty years since their fathers had 
broken the best English infantry and made Johnnie Cope’s 
dragoons scamper for their lives. 

It was upon the cards that had they been adequately led 
and well backed they would have carried San Roque and 
burnt the Spanish camp. 

Or, and this too was upon the cards, they might have dis- 
persed to plunder and been cut up in detail by Mendoza’s 
reserve, supposing the Capitan General to have kept such a 
force in hand. 

Wise Eliott would take no risks. His first duty was to 
hold his post, not to occupy territory which he could not 
retain, so his bugles blew, and blew, and the mainguard at 
the Land Port waited, peering out into the fog along the 
causeway for the return of those desperadoes. 

And at Forbes’s Barrier, where the fighting was over, a 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


408 

grand reconciliation was in progress between the men of the 
12th and their former enemies, the Hardenbergs. ’Twas 
spontaneous : the moment was golden, propitious ; the hoarded 
hates of years were gone as though such feelings had never 
been, lost in the delicious sense of mutual respect that springs 
in the martial bosoms of men who have shared the same danger 
and come through. Both corps had suffered somewhat 
heavily, but with a difference. Of the two suborned companies 
of Hanoverians, a full half lay dead after a surrender so 
pusillanimous as to deprive their subsequent massacre of half 
its horror and all sympathy. Their misconduct had been 
inexplicable — to those not in the secret, and the survivors 
naturally refrained from supplying the clue. Thank Heaven, 
the English had seen nothing ! 

One officer of the recreant company had indeed fallen 
gloriously. A certain Ensign Scrivener, an Englishman, 
hitherto of small account with his mess, and under suspicion 
of late, he, knowing scarce a dozen words of the language of 
the men whom he commanded, and who had betrayed him, and 
still less of the speech of those Catalans under whose bayonets 
he died, caught unaware, and carried beyond himself by passion, 
had offered a desperate resistance, and lay dead with twenty 
honourable wounds in him. 

Months later my Lord Duddingstone would learn the last 
news of his son with motions of inward wonder, tears of 
paternal pity, sorrow, regrets, and, withal, promptings of secret 
relief ! ’Twas marvellous unlike the boy : God rest his soul ! 
He might have lived longer and ended worse. After all, the 
family character had saved him at the last : there had been 
good stuff in the prodigal. My lord’s bosom swelled, his 
eyes overflowed, he, even he, had begotten a warrior, had 
found a man for his country. There should be such a monu- 
ment in Duddingstone church ! rare Italian marbles, none of 
your gray Sicilian, nor dusky-buff Veronese, but Giallo antico 
relieved by " Pavonazzo and black basalt (but no rosso , it stinks 
in wet weather), Oh, the finest oFmarbles ! And a trophy of 
arms in bronze, with rippled ribands and swags of foliage in 
the taste of the late renascence, with a bust, should it be ? or 
a medallion ? Not a medallion : poor Fred’s nose turned up — 
the Horrocks nose — a bust, then, above, upon a classic altar, 
caressed by a mourning father (himself) chapleting the brows 
of the youthful hero with laurels with one hand, whilst half- 
veiling his own face with the other ; and — and, let him see — 
should not Britannia ? — yes, assuredly it should be Britannia, 
or the muse of History, stylus in hand, inscribe a shield with 
Scrivener, Gibraltar, and some appropriate tag, dulce et decorum, 
etc. (more tears). And the inscription, ah yes, the inscription, 


THE LAST 


409 

terse, sonorous, of unimpeachable latinity that even Walpole 
could find no flaw in. 

So passes the Honourable Fred Scrivener, fortunate in the 
moment and in the manner of his death. Good-bye to thee, 
Fred ! And farewell, my lord ! Desolate, disappointed old 
heart, thou art not the first, nor shalt thou be the last, to weave 
a noble legend about the memory of a thoroughly unsatis- 
factory son. 

But we must back to the English lines, where our Colonel, 
keen, timely, and quietly efficient as ever, having despatched 
Travis to the Governor with news of the complete success of 
his movement, and with absolute orders not to return before 
looking in upon the ladies, and having his hurts seen to and 
rebandaged, our Colonel, I say, was everywhere, solacing the 
chagrins of the Badener officers left in British hands, and, 
since he had not the pleasure and honour of being able to 
address to them his condolences and compliments in their 
own tongue, calling in the assistance of the Hanoverian colonel, 
with whom he exchanged snuff-boxes upon the strength of a 
victory, the chief honours of which he ascribed to Harden- 
berg staunchness. (Bows, and more bows, and yet more 
bows !) The example was contagious, ’twas a “ general 
post ” of snuff-boxes : the two messes fraternised upon the spot, 
and remained good friends until the end of the siege. 

And the women ? How shall one bring home to a sheltered 
people the lot of women who must live through a battle-day 
within sound of the guns ? Did those minutes go swiftly, 
think you ? Was there any keeping one’s thoughts to the 
work in hand ? Come now, have you, my reader, ever lived 
through any remotely similar experience ? Has it fallen to 
you to sit upon the stairs, hunched, sick, breathless, through 
endless minutes, whilst the surgeons were busy behind the 
door across the landing ? Aye ? you have ? Then you, at 
least, can realise the anguish of that hour, the miserable 
physical distress of it, the searing pains across the forehead, 
the pressure upon the nape, the weight upon the heart that 
no sighing will heave off. 

Susan took command, and kept them at it. The rooms 
vibrated to the screech of torn linen ; she chattered, scolded, 
laughed, urged, sang, talked incessantly, cheerfully, working 
and making the rest work. How much longer could she keep 
this up ? She marvelled at herself, her insensibility, her 
hardness of heart. 

Was that a knock ? The guns had done firing, but the 
musketry still flickered, died down, and broke out afresh. 
Surely some one was at the door ? None dared to suggest 


410 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


such a thing. They looked askance at one another. It came 
again. Susan flew. Her brother was there, begrimed, be- 
blooded, smiling, a kind word of the Governor’s still glowing 
in his heart. “ Old girl, we’ve beat them ! ” he said, not 
loudly, for he was near the end of his tether. “ Oh, Dray, you 

are hurt ” The passage behind his sister seemed to fill 

with women. “ The Colonel isn’t touched,” he assured them, 
and saw Mrs. Hollinghurst toss up her hands and go down as 
if shot. 

“ I say — I say ! ” he muttered, leaning heavily against 
the jamb. 

“ Oh, let her be ! She will take no harm ! Sue, see to 
your brother,” whispered Mrs. Lamb, hurrying forward. 

And so Susan was mercifully carried over the next half 
hour. 

And what of young Chisholm ? Having given his arm to 
the Colonel as far as the Prince’s Lines, he had flown to rejoin 
his own corps at the Land Port and waited with mute im- 
patience for the escalade which, as we know, was never pushed. 
When, later, a sally was permitted, his company was not among 
the three which were held in reserve, and his opportunity had 
come. 

There are moments in our lives of spiritual and physical 
exaltation when the man is above himself, capable not merely 
of attempting, but of effecting the impossible. On such an 
occasion spirit and flesh are in as perfect accord as a fearless 
rider and a bold horse, before whose onset the impervious and 
the insurmountable sunders, yields, and flies behind. A man 
thus uplifted will never lack followers whose imaginations 
take fire from his, and are temporarily obsessed by his person- 
ality. Among the forty and odd commissioned officers of 
Lord M’Leod’s regiment there was not a man who was not 
a-tiptoe for the onset. What faces ! bloodless, curbed, gravely 
smiling as to the lips, and as to the eyes, jewel-bright, jewel- 
hard. Every man of them all was perfectly certain that this 
was his own particular day, but one among them, unknown 
to his fellows, wore enchanted armour, a girl’s riband and a 
girl’s heart, and felt himself immune to steel and bullet. This 
hour should make him ; he would rise to the height of the love 
with which his lady had crowned him. 


Outside the drawbridge of the Land Port gate, upon the 
crown of the causeway which spans the flooded meadow, 
peering out into the fog, was old Ian Chisholm. With feet 
set well apart, and a bush of white beard hanging down over 
hands crossed upon the crook of his great teak walking-stick, 


THE LAST 


411 

he stood, scrutinising impatiently the parties of M’Leod’s men 
returning to their bugles. For a time a continuous stream 
of Scottish lads poured past him on either side, chattering 
joyously in the Gaelic over sporrans heavy with the mis- 
cellaneous spoils of a stricken field. Some shepherded silent 
prisoners, some strode by with drawn faces enduring the 
smart of wounds. 

When the stream of sound men slackened, came lame men 
helped or carried. Last came the dead, borne in a pathetic 
silence. 

The watcher looked in the face of each as he passed, but 
looked in vain. Among the latest came a youngster hirpling 
slowly, for he had taken a bullet in the calf, and grieving aloud 
over a crippled sword-hand, and to him the old man addressed 
himself. 

“ Man, are ye no shamed to be greeting like a bairn ? 
Whaur’s yer ensign ? Whaur’s Mr. John Chisholm ? ” 

“ Iss it Ian oie to Hector ? — ta Master of Overskaig, that 
ye wull be speiring for ? Oh, ta young chief wass clean gyte 
the day, whateffer ! Indeed and indeed, and I did my en- 
deevours, for that I am a Chisholm of Shinside too, but there 
wass no keeping with him. Ou ! and all the pains of hell in 
ta wame o’ ta man wha blaudit ma wrist ! ” He limped on, 
regarded sourly by his old clansman, and was presently under 
the skilled hands of good Mr. Cairncross. 

And now the trickle had run dry, and still he held his post, 
although once and again canister from Fort San Philip drove 
the water of the inundation seething before it. Spain had 
regained her lines and was covering failure with a renewed 
cannonade. 

In the silence that followed a volley the watcher could 
distinguish the clink of boot-heels upon the causeway and 
still waited. 

Then, brokenly and ill-rendered, came a whistled quick- 
step, the Chisholm “ rant.” The watcher beat time for a bar, 
upon the head of his staff : not the massed bands of the garrison 
could have moved him so. “Hech! ’tis a wheen years syne 
these auld lugs heard yon. ... I jaloose ’twill be a lad o’ 
ma ain fowk.” 

“ Ta laddie comes late ... he comes last ... he comes by 
his lane.” He went to meet him. “ John, iss it yersel’ ? ” 

It was* John, though scarcely recognisable for the speckle 
of powder-rash that darkened his face (a pistol fired point- 
blank) and a cut across the cheek, through which the bone 
glimmered whitely. The lad stepped out doggedly, despite 
that awful fatigue which follows hand-to-hand fighting ; and 
for all the secret glory of a first wound which had spared eye 


412 


FINIS CORONAT OPUS 


and limb, was in a silent rage with himself and the world at 
large, exasperated with the final incompleteness of a battle 
which but a minute before had seemed ideal in its perfection. 

“ What’s this ? Ye’re no’ sair hurt ? ” 

“ Nae thing, sir, nae thing ; but ta dommed vratch hass 
brok’ hiss parole. I brocht him safe till ta heid o’ ta cause- 
way. ... I hae hiss swoord, whateffer.” 

Alas, poor John ! His prisoner, a person of distinction, to 
judge by the bullion tassel of his sword-knot, having sur- 
rendered in haste had repented at leisure, and, tempted by the 
obscurity of the weather, and disgusted with the ridiculous 
youth of his captor, had behaved ill. John might grumble; 
but what cared old Ian Chisholm ? Linking his arm within 
that of his newly recovered kinsman, he haled him along to 
the Land Port, praising his God in the Gaelic that at this last, 
and in his old age, He had in mercy sent him a man of his 
blood to look him in the face. 

“ Never fash yersel’ for yer hurt, John; I’ve a dizzen waur 
in me, and here I stand the day a soond man for ma years.” 

“ ’Tis not that, sir, but I’ve naething to show.” 

“ Hoots ! I’ve sin a pretty man gang through three cam- 
paigns wi’ less than ye hae gotten across yer face and aneath yer 
oxter. But, had ye naething ava, ye’re the man for auld Ian 
Chisholm. . . . Laddie, I mak ye ma son and heir fra this 
hour ! (Spier o’ yer colonel what that means.) Ou, ay, an’ 
I’ll see this bit siege through (’twill mind me of Arcot), and 
Hector and Shinside maun bide their turn.” 

They had crossed the drawbridge, were under the arch and 
within the gate now ; a dozen hands of welcome were extended ; 
no jealousies had survived that furnace-heat of battle ; but 
the lad broke from the circle of admiring comrades, his eye 
caught something in the background, “ Wha’s thot ? — Ta 
leddy ! ” 


7 2 8 


'-'H 


Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viuey, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 


























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